What an Auckland renovation actually costs — and the number nobody can give you.

The gap is specific, and it is worth understanding

Stats NZ splits residential building consents into new and altered. For new dwellings it publishes a count, a declared value and a floor area. For alterations it publishes a count and a declared value, and no floor area — the series does not exist. Dividing dollars by square metres therefore works for building a house and is impossible for altering one.

That is the whole reason a renovation cost per square metre cannot be sourced in this country. Anyone quoting you one has either taken a new-build figure and relabelled it, or made it up. The two numbers below are the honest version of that comparison, and they measure different things.

So what does this site do instead?

• Published data. Consent counts and declared values by local board, cost indexes, trade wages, Unitary Plan zoning, special character and heritage overlays. Dated, and linked to the release it came from.
• The rules. Consent thresholds and restricted building work are written down in the Building Act 2004 and its schedules. They are not opinions, and they decide the sequence of your job.
• Judgement. Where a number can only come from experience it is labelled judgement and given as a range, with the reasoning on the page — never dressed up as data.

A monolithic or stucco-clad house is not automatically failing, and a weatherboard house is not automatically sound. But they are different jobs. Monolithic needs invasive moisture investigation before anyone prices the work, because if water is in the framing the scope stops being a kitchen and becomes a reclad — with targeted framing repair, a drained cavity and a building consent. Weatherboard is usually repairable in place, and the surprises are smaller.

This is why any renovation quote given without an inspection is a guess. It is also why the first question on a villa is different from the first question on a 1998 plaster townhouse. What a reclad involves, and when a renovation turns into one.

Both series describe the same decade from different angles, and they agree: a real increase of roughly a fifth to a quarter. Over the same window the producer price of paints and varnishes fell 9% in real terms, and construction hourly earnings rose 9.6% in real terms. The pressure is in labour, consenting, inspection and finance — not in the timber and the tiles.

The practical consequence: renovation budgets built from what a job cost a few years ago are wrong by more than most people allow for, and the gap is not explained by material prices. The full index picture, series by series.

Under the Building Act 2004, work that affects a building’s primary structure or its weathertightness is restricted building work, and it must be carried out or supervised by a Licensed Building Practitioner. Taking out a load-bearing wall, cutting a new opening in an exterior wall, adding a floor, altering a roof line and reclading all sit in that category. So does a great deal of what people describe as "just opening up the kitchen".

A licensed practitioner also has to give you a record of work when they finish, and that record goes on the property file. If nobody can name the LBP on your job, you do not have a compliant job — you have a risk you will meet again when you sell.

Which jobs need a building consent, and which are exempt under Schedule 1.

So the photography plates on this site are marked as reserved and carry the brief for the shot that has been commissioned, and the review section beside this is empty. Both will fill up with real, attributable work. Until then, judge the site on the part that is checkable: every figure carries its source and its date, and you can follow each one back to the government release it came from.

There is also no LBP number here, no guarantee product, no years-in-business and no job count — because there is no confirmed trading entity behind the site yet. When there is, it will be named.

Every source this site uses, and what we could not find.

What happens after you send it

• An honest read on whether your budget and your scope match, in writing.
• If they do not match, we tell you that instead of booking a site visit.
• If the job needs a Licensed Building Practitioner, we say so and say why.
• If it is not a job for us, we say that and point you somewhere useful.
• No mailing list. One conversation about one job.

The longer version of this form, and what each question is for.