About
Why this site exists
Because every renovation website in Auckland publishes prices with no source, and the one number everybody quotes — a renovation cost per square metre — cannot be derived from any free New Zealand dataset. A site that shows its working is genuinely useful. A site that shows a confident number it cannot defend is not.
The argument
Show the working, or say nothing.
New Zealand publishes a great deal about building: consent counts and declared values, cost indexes, trade wages, zoning, special character and heritage overlays. It publishes almost nothing about what a job costs. Those two facts are usually resolved by simply making the second one up.
This site resolves it the other way. Where a figure exists it is given with its release, its period and its caveats. Where one does not exist, that is stated as plainly as the figures are — including on the home page, where it costs the most to admit it.
The practical test we hold every page to: could a reader follow each number back to the government release it came from, and would they still agree with the sentence built on it? If not, the sentence goes.
Stats NZ — Building consents issued — Auckland local boards, May 2026 release · May 2026
Source verification, this site · 30 July 2026
There are no reviews on this site and no photographs of completed work, because there are no completed jobs yet. Both sections are built and reserved. Neither will be filled with anything invented.
Who publishes it
Amit Sharma, in Auckland
Renovate Auckland is written and published by Amit Sharma, who works in Auckland residential property and marketing. It is one of a small group of Auckland reference sites built on the same principle — that a property question deserves a sourced answer — alongside Paintwork Auckland for repainting.
He is not a builder and does not claim to be. The building work behind any enquiry this site passes on is carried out by a licensed trade partner, and the licence belongs to them, not to the site.
The commercial relationship, stated plainly
How the site earns, and what that means for what you read.
Renovate Auckland introduces qualified renovation enquiries to an Auckland trade partner and may benefit commercially from that introduction. That partner is not yet confirmed. There is no advertising on the site, no affiliate content, no sponsored placement, and your details are not sold or passed to a lead broker. The site therefore has a commercial interest in you sending a brief — which is exactly why every figure on it carries a source you can check independently of us.
Two consequences worth being explicit about. First, while the partner is unconfirmed, this site cannot promise you a builder — it can promise you a straight answer and, if the work is not theirs, a referral. Second, because much renovation work legally requires a Licensed Building Practitioner, you should ask for the LBP’s name and licence class on any renovation quote you receive, from anyone, including through here. That is a reasonable question and a good builder expects it.
Questions people actually ask
Is this a building company?
No. It is an information site about renovating in Auckland that introduces qualified enquiries to a local trade partner. It does not hold a building licence, and it does not carry out work.
How does the site make money?
By introducing qualified renovation work to an Auckland trade partner, and it may benefit commercially from that introduction. There is no advertising, no affiliate content, no sponsored placement and no sale of your details to a lead broker. If that arrangement ever changes, this page changes with it.
Why is there no LBP number on the site?
Because there is no confirmed trading entity behind it yet, so there is no licence to quote. On a renovation site that absence is material rather than cosmetic — most renovation work is restricted building work and legally requires a Licensed Building Practitioner. Publishing a licence number, a guarantee or an insurance claim that cannot be backed up would be the exact dishonesty this site is built against.
Who writes it?
Amit Sharma, in Auckland. The datasets are ingested from the published releases listed on the sources page, and every figure on the site carries the release it came from and the date it was read.
The sibling site
Paintwork Auckland is built on the same rules, for repainting rather than renovation.
Paintwork Auckland