Price of new Waipa homes going through the roof

By Grant Johnston

A combination of rising building costs and people opting for bigger homes has seen the average cost of building a house in some parts of Waipa District more than double over the past 10 years. There are also twice as many new homes being built.

The lifestyle block phenomenon has seen the value of new buildings in Waipa’s country wards soar - illustrated by Council’s building consents statistics. The average building consent value for a new home in Pirongia Ward was around $122,000 in 1995 - 10 years later it had rocketed to $255,000. Consents do not include the value of chattels, carpets and window dressings or landscaping, fences etc and land.

It has been a steady increase, with close to half the increase having occurred in the five years from 1995-2000 when the average building consent value in the ward was $180,000.

There were consents issued for 66 new homes in Pirongia Ward last year at a total value of close to $17 million.

But the ward with highest average building value was Kakepuku - with 22 new homes having an average consent value of $301,500. Average value in Kakepuku Ward five years ago was $171,100 and 10 years ago was $116,000 - meaning for this country ward the average consent value has almost trebled over the past decade (with the number of new homes being built also trebling).

In Maungatautari the average consent value has risen from $122,000 in 1995 to $287,133 in 2005.

Te Awamutu Ward has done some ‘catching up’ in relation to the country wards and its urban counterpart, Cambridge, in recent years, but even with 76 new dwellings last year (up from 48 in 1995) was still less than half Cambridge’s 157 (driven by new subdivisions opening up to the north of the town). The average consent value in Te Awamutu has risen from $112,000 in 1995 to $199,000 last year.

Cambridge’s average consent value last year was $235,000, compared to $134,000 in 1995. Total value of building consents in Waipa District last year was $160 million - four times 1995’s figure.

There were also around twice as many new Waipa homes built in 2005 (373) as in 1995 (197).