SR319 Client and designer choices and their effect on new housing costs (2019)

This report aims to improve our understanding of which factors affect housing affordability. It focuses on changes in quality and design, through first talking to builders and designers on common client and designer choices, and the additional cost of these changes. A datasheet is produced for use by builders and designers illustrating the additional costs.

The BRANZ Index for New Housing Affordability is then introduced. Existing housing affordability indices already exist. However, there is nothing measuring the affordability of new-builds over time. The index shows that affordability has declined since 2001. A standardised 200 m² house now costs an extra year of the median New Zealand household income than it did in 2001. Once the fact that the average new house size has increased over this period is also taken into account, it costs an extra 1.7 years of the median household income to build a new house.

The BRANZ Building Envelope Characteristics Index for New Housing is the second index in this report. It uses the BRANZ materials survey to identify where changes in building envelope characteristics occur over time. The index shows that there has been little change in this over the last 3 years.