Q1: January - March 2025

You'll find an overview featuring the latest analysis from Build Insights, covering the period from January to March 2025.

Discover the key trends and insights we've uncovered, including:

Housing affordability

• Building a new house costs $201,000 more than buying an existing house, on average.
• The cost to build a house has increased by nearly 20% since mid-2022, with an average 200m2 house costing $777,000 in March 2025.

Building resilience

• There are more construction businesses and workers now than ever before.
• But business liquidations in February 2025 are up 37% compared to February 2024, with construction making up 31% of liquidations.

Building supply

• New builds are getting smaller. The average size of new standalone houses consented in 2024 was 176m2, compared to 184m2 in 2023.
• Since 2023, building consents for stand-alone houses have increased slightly, whereas consents for attached dwellings have decreased by 16%.

Trades training

• Carpentry apprentices have more than doubled in the past decade – there are 21,165 apprentices in 2023, compared to 9,280 in 2014.