Hon Megan Woods

Minister of Housing PRESS RELEASE
23 October 2019

The Government’s Housing Dashboard released today confirms record numbers of state houses are under construction and shows the Government build programme is gaining momentum.

“After nine years of inaction, and a hands-off attitude from the previous government we’re starting to see things move in the right direction for housing,” says Housing Minister Megan Woods.

The September dashboard shows that in the previous month:
• 3,402 homes under construction in the Government build programme across New Zealand
• 80 new public houses built , and over 2,300 currently under construction
• 1,340 homes were bought using the First Home Grant
• 61 KiwiBuild homes sold, driven by demand for the popular Monark and Fraser Ave developments coming to market
• 967 households are engaged in Housing First

“We’ve got over 2300 public houses currently being built. If the previous government had been building at that pace, rather than selling state houses off, we wouldn’t even have a waiting list.

“We’re also seeing a year on year increase in the number of consents issued with 35,658 in the last 12 months. That’s an increase of 8.8% on last year.

“We made a commitment when we reset the KiwiBuild programme that we would deliver a monthly dashboard of housing measures to show New Zealanders how we’re tracking. This dashboard sets the baseline for the Government build programme.

“As I said at the time of the reset, some statistics won’t always improve month on month and we’ll be upfront about those in this monthly dashboard.

“Overall we’re starting to make good progress with the Government build programme gathering momentum but the size of the housing issues we inherited from the previous government means there is still plenty to do,” says Megan Woods.

Notes to Editors
• Link to Government Housing Programme Dashboard on the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development website
• October 2019 is the first dashboard developed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and will be produced and updated on a monthly basis.
• The Housing Dashboard does not replace the Public Housing Quarterly Report, Regional Factsheets, or the Public Housing Monthly Report which are on the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development website.

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