Built environment

New Zealand's housing and non-residential building stock.

Total number of occupied dwellings, people per dwelling, and ownership rate

The ratio of people to dwellings has gradually increased from 2.79 people per occupied dwelling in 2001 to 2.81 people per occupied dwelling in 2006.

	1991	1996	2001	2006
Census night population	3,434,949	3,681,546	3,820,749	4,143,279
Occupied dwellings	1,185,396	1,283,994	1,368,204	1,471,746
Average number of people per occupied dwelling	2.90	2.87	2.79	2.81
Percentage of private dwellings owned by residents	73.8	70.7	67.8	66.91

¹ Includes 12.3% of private dwellings held in a Family Trust by usual resident(s).

Housing stock

The value of New Zealand’s housing stock increased moderately from the late 1980s until early this millennium. In recent years housing stock value has risen rapidly, as a result of house price increases and new building. $10.875 billion was spent on new dwellings in the March 2006 year. At the end of the first quarter 2007 the Reserve Bank estimated the aggregate of private-sector residential dwelling values at $587 billion. The Reserve Bank estimates that approximately 90 percent of New Zealand households’ net worth is represented by housing assets.

^{Source: Reserve Bank of New Zealand and Quotable Value Limited}

At present, building consents issued by territorial authorities indicate that 25,732 dwellings are being built in the October 2007 year. This is lower than the peak of 32,984 dwelling consents in the year to July 2004 but it is still significantly higher than the estimated 19,279 issued in the year to July 2001, which preludes the current housing market cycle.

At the 2006 Census 77 percent of dwellings were separate houses. Approximately 17 percent were two or more flats/units/townhouses/apartments/houses joined together. 66.9 percent of dwellings were owned by the person or people living in them or were held in a Family Trust by usual resident(s).

Non-residential building stock

There are currently no officially accepted statistics giving the value of non-residential buildings, but the National Accounts Division of Statistics New Zealand estimates the Net Capital Stock of non-residential buildings at March 2007 at $107.058 billion².

At the same time the residential buildings net capital stock value was estimated at $247.467 billion².

² These net capital stock figures are at current prices and represent accumulated investment less retirements and accumulated depreciation for assets still operating (ie gross capital stock less accumulated depreciation on assets still in operation).