Source
https://www.branz.co.nz/buildinsights — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
BRANZ (Dec 2025) — Building & Construction Sector Economic Insights
BRANZ Build Insights quarterly economic report (December 2025) — an industry-facing synthesis of NZ housing-affordability gains (mortgage serviceability, deposit-to-save time, value-to-income ratio) and the construction-sector outlook (a soft near-term trough inside a steady long-term growth picture,
59.9 bn →73.3 bn by 2029), with strong regional disaggregation of affordability and section-plus-build costs.
context: thesis— feeds the thesis’s housing-affordability / economic-context argument, NOT an NI calculation cell (feeds: []). Every figure traces verbatim to the raw PDF (data_quality: verified), but note BRANZ is an aggregator here: the headline numbers are drawn from Cotality, REINZ, MHUD (Change in Housing Affordability Indicators / Mortgage serviceability indicator), Reserve Bank, Stats NZ (CGPI) and the National Construction Pipeline Report (2024). A promotional “insights” summary, so figures are rounded/headline; the underlying primaries are the authoritative anchors.
Summary
This is the December 2025 BRANZ “building and construction sector economic insights” report (BRANZ Build Insights, filename Build-Insights-Report-Q3-4-2025), a four-page industry brief that “uses the latest trusted data to reveal current conditions and forecast building and construction trends.” Its two threads are (1) housing affordability, which has improved markedly since the late-2023 mortgage-rate peak but very unevenly by region — Wellington and Auckland lead, most provincial regions lag — and (2) the construction-sector outlook, a slow short-term picture inside a steady long-term growth trajectory (BRANZ economic modelling forecasts activity rising from 59.9 bn in 2025 to 73.3 bn in 2029), now given more weight by confirmed large projects (accelerated school infrastructure spending, defence housing). It also disaggregates the combined cost to buy a section and build across 16 regions (West Coast lowest ~510k, Otago highest ~967k). BRANZ synthesises third-party indicators — Cotality, REINZ, MHUD, Reserve Bank, Stats NZ (CGPI), and the National Construction Pipeline Report (2024) — rather than presenting its own primary survey, so the report is best used as a dated, NZ-specific snapshot of the affordability/economic context that motivates alternative and self-sufficient housing models, with the named primaries as the citable anchors. For the thesis it complements the deeper alternative-tenure and demand-driver evidence in OT_054 and LIT_028.
Key claims
- claim: "Overview headline figures (December 2025): if households continue repaying at 2023 levels, a standard 30-year mortgage could now be paid off in around 17.5 years; the time it takes to save for a deposit has dropped from 14 years in 2021 to 10 years in 2025; Wellington has seen a 64% improvement in mortgage serviceability from late 2023, compared to a national average of 52%; section prices in Auckland and Wellington have fallen by 16% over the last 12 months, while sections in the Bay of Plenty region have increased by 23%; BRANZ economic modelling forecasts a steady increase from $59.9 billion in activity in 2025 to $73.3 billion in 2029; national construction prices have risen by 1% over the past year, while the cost of new house consents (dollars per square metre) has increased by 3.6% since December 2023."
source_location: "Page 1 — Intro + Overview four-panel summary (Housing affordability gains / Urban centres lead / Strong construction pipeline / Construction costs and labour pressures)"
- claim: "Mortgage affordability detail: advertised mortgage interest rates in 2023 were peaking with floating rates around 8%; at the current average special mortgage rate of 4.43%, monthly repayments on the same level of property are 26% lower compared to late 2023. Cotality's Q2 2025 housing affordability report shows a value-to-income ratio of approximately 7.5 in Q2 2025, the lowest since mid-2019, and a drop in time-to-save-a-deposit to approximately 10 years versus almost 14 years in 2021. MHUD's Mortgage serviceability indicator shows the Wellington region with the biggest improvement, up 64% from late 2023; Auckland improved by 56%, compared to a national average of 52%. Affordability gains are focussed on Wellington and Auckland — 'a different story in our regions.'"
source_location: "Page 2 — 'Housing affordability gains depend on where you live'; data sources listed: Change in Housing Affordability Indicators (CHAI), Cotality, Reserve Bank, Ministry of Housing and Urban Development"
- claim: "Regional section prices and build costs (per square metre): section prices per m² in the Auckland and Wellington regions fell by 16% over the last 12 months and Otago fell by 15%, while Bay of Plenty sections increased by 23%. The build price of a new house (dollars per m²) shows a 3% increase since December 2023, with regional variation — Gisborne and Nelson both saw a decrease of 15% and 13% respectively, while the highest increase was Manawatu-Whanganui at 13%. Callout: Taranaki is 22% more expensive to buy a section and build than in 2023, compared with a 13% reduction in costs in the Tasman."
source_location: "Page 3 — 'Where you build continues to impact costs' (prose) + callout box"
- claim: "Combined cost to buy a section and build, by region (2025; the analysis combines section prices with consent values to indicate overall cost to build): West Coast $510k (Lowest); Southland $565k; Marlborough $586k; Taranaki $657k; Manawatu-Whanganui $664k; Northland $687k; Canterbury $700k; Wellington $735k; Tasman $758k; Waikato $768k; Hawke's Bay $785k; Nelson $788k; Bay of Plenty $892k; Auckland $956k; Otago $967k (Highest). Gisborne is N/A — there was insufficient section price data for Gisborne. Regional change-vs-2023 markers shown on the map include Taranaki +22%, Tasman -13%, Auckland -5%, Nelson -5%, Hawke's Bay +14%. Otago is the highest because the analysis uses consent values as well as section prices, so areas like Queenstown, with stronger demand for higher-spec homes, are pushed higher despite falling section prices."
source_location: "Page 3 — 'Section and build costs across the regions' regional map + footnotes * (insufficient Gisborne data) and ** (consent-value method / Queenstown effect)"
- claim: "Construction pipeline and prices: BRANZ economic modelling forecasts a steady increase in construction activity from $59.9 billion to $73.3 billion by 2029, with steady growth beyond 2026 given more weight by the government's recent announcement of accelerated school infrastructure spending and confirmed large defence housing projects (increasing regional building activity), building on the longstanding National Construction Pipeline Report (2024) forecast of steady increase in construction workloads to 2029. Construction price pressures are easing temporarily: Stats NZ's CGPI for residential construction shows national construction prices increased by 1% over the last year and 3% since December 2023; the cost of new house consents (dollars per m²) shows a similar 3% increase since December 2023. Pressures on materials and labour have eased but the outlook of future projects suggests they could re-emerge."
source_location: "Page 4 — 'Construction pipeline strong long-term outlook' + chart 'Expenditure on construction in current $B' (2025–2029; Residential / Non-residential / Other construction — roads, bridges, energy); CGPI footnote; data sources Stats NZ, BRANZ, National Construction Pipeline Report"Key thesis insights
- A dated, NZ-specific snapshot of the affordability squeeze that motivates alternative/self-sufficient housing. Even after the post-2023 improvement, the December-2025 numbers still describe a stretched market — a value-to-income ratio of ~7.5 (Cotality Q2 2025, only “the lowest since mid-2019”), ~10 years to save a deposit, and a 30-year mortgage that at 2023 repayment levels takes ~17.5 years to clear. This is current, citable evidence for the thesis’s structural-affordability premise, complementing the deeper drivers in LIT_028 and the deterioration statistics in OT_054. OT_130
- Affordability gains are spatially concentrated — the “different story in our regions” is the thesis-relevant finding. The mortgage-serviceability improvement is led by Wellington (+64%) and Auckland (+56%) against a national average of 52%, and the report explicitly frames affordability as depending “on where you live.” For a thesis centred on remote/provincial and self-sufficient communities, this spatial-equity gap — metropolitan buyers capturing the interest-rate relief while regions lag — is a concrete data point on why conventional-market affordability does not reach the periphery evenly. OT_130
- Region strongly determines the cost to build — a ~1.9× spread across NZ. The combined section-plus-build cost ranges from ~
510k (West Coast, lowest) to ~967k (Otago, highest), i.e. roughly a 1.9× spread, with high-amenity demand (Queenstown) inflating the top end via consent values rather than land alone. This regional cost heterogeneity is useful context for any thesis claim about where community/alternative housing is economically reachable, and is a directional companion to the absolute per-m² build-cost anchors held elsewhere in the corpus (OT_123, OT_098, OT_127). OT_130 - The construction-sector macro-context: soft near-term, steady long-term. BRANZ modelling forecasts activity rising
59.9 bn →73.3 bn by 2029, a steady-growth picture now anchored by confirmed government infrastructure (schools, defence housing). This frames the sector-capacity backdrop against which alternative delivery models compete for labour and materials, and notes that eased materials/labour pressures “could re-emerge” — relevant to the durability of any affordability gain the thesis discusses. OT_130
Research targets
Underlying primaries are named in the report and mostly already anchored or low-value to retrieve:
Documents to retrieve
- The National Construction Pipeline Report (2024) (cited as the basis for the to-2029 workload forecast) and Cotality’s Q2 2025 housing affordability report (value-to-income 7.5, deposit-to-save 10 yrs) are the retrievable primaries behind the headline outlook/affordability figures — recorded here as available if needed.
Research gaps
- Light cross-reference to RT_368 (NZ construction-cost escalation 2018→2026, to de-date OT_113’s civil rates): this report corroborates Stats NZ CGPI residential at +1% over the last year and +3% since December 2023, but does not supply the multi-year 2018→2026 factor RT_368 seeks — RT_368 stays open.
Notes
Downloaded authoritative BRANZ Build Insights PDF (December 2025; InDesign/Adobe, 4 pages, A4), read verbatim via pdftotext -layout → data_quality: verified (every cited figure traces to the raw). NOT AI-prepared, so no retrieval-provenance block. context: thesis, feeds: [] — housing-affordability and construction-economics context for the thesis; it does not deliver clean, absolute per-unit cost inputs for an NI calculation cell (the regional figures are composite section+consent-value totals and headline percentages, not build-cost-per-m² anchors), so it is deliberately routed thesis-only. If NI later wants a regional build-cost-variation layer, the combined section+build map (West Coast 510k → Otago 967k) is the hook, but it should be paired with a clean $/m² source before entering the engine.
⚠ BRANZ is an aggregator here. The headline numbers are third-party indicators BRANZ presents, not BRANZ primary measurement — Cotality (value-to-income, deposit-to-save), REINZ (regional median prices), MHUD (Mortgage serviceability indicator / Change in Housing Affordability Indicators), Reserve Bank (rates), Stats NZ (CGPI residential), National Construction Pipeline Report 2024 (workload forecast). Cite the report as the snapshot; the named bodies are the authoritative primaries.
⚠ Internal figure inconsistency (verbatim-faithful, flagged not resolved): the cost of new house consents ($/m²) is given as +3.6% since December 2023 on page 1 (Overview) but +3% since December 2023 on page 4 (‘Construction price pressures easing’). Both figures are reproduced as written; treat “~3%” as the working value.
⚠ Three distinct percentage metrics appear on page 3 — do not conflate: (a) section price per m², 12-month change (Auckland/Wellington −16%, Otago −15%, Bay of Plenty +23%); (b) build price of a new house per m², change since Dec 2023 (national +3%, Gisborne −15%, Nelson −13%, Manawatu-Whanganui +13%); (c) combined section+build cost, change vs 2023 (map/callout: Taranaki +22%, Tasman −13%, Auckland −5%, Nelson −5%, Hawke’s Bay +14%). Nelson shows up under both (b) −13% and (c) −5% because they measure different things.
⚠ Map-graphic transcription: the regional values and the map change-markers were read from the page-3 map graphic layout (not running prose); the prose/callout confirm Taranaki +22% and Tasman −13%, but the other map markers (Auckland −5%, Nelson −5%, Hawke's Bay +14%) are graphic-read and should be spot-checked against the PDF if used load-bearingly. A single unlabelled "761k” figure also appears at the right edge of the map with no region attached (possibly a national/overall average) — deliberately NOT attributed to any region.
⚠ Report-period label: the report’s own cover says only “December 2025”; the “Q3–Q4 2025” period comes from the source filename (Build-Insights-Report-Q3-4-2025). Cotality data cited is Q2 2025.
Connections
Links to
Referenced by
Sources (1): RD_032