The consent data says recovery. The activity data says the floor has not arrived. If you have ever tried to explain to a client why a strong pipeline does not pay this month’s wages, this is that argument with a country attached. Stats NZ recorded 39,737 new dwellings...
The headline number looks like a collapse. Look closer and it is something more interesting. American builders are choosing to stop, and the reasoning behind that choice is worth understanding before conditions here ask the same question of you. US housing starts fell...
Modular and prefabricated construction is a $150 billion global industry and growing at 7 percent a year. Hong Kong is mandating it on public housing. Japan is using it to offset an ageing workforce. Canada is funding it at scale. Australia is still deciding. At some...
Canada has created a new government body to act as a housing developer, backed by $25 billion and a target to double construction output. It is one of the most ambitious interventions in a Western housing market in decades. Here is what to watch. Most governments...
New Zealand builders have just traded through what industry leaders describe as the worst recession since 1991. Some held their teams together. Some didn't. The ones who held on are now positioned differently. Here is what the evidence shows. New Zealand construction...
Japan's construction workforce is ageing faster than it can be replaced. The country is 20 years ahead of Australia on this curve. What it is doing now, and what it is failing to do, is a preview every building industry needs to watch. Japan has a way of arriving at...
Germany is running short of hundreds of thousands of homes while its construction industry reports a historic lack of orders. Understanding how the most engineering-proud economy in Europe ended up here matters for every building market. There is something deeply...
Labour came to power promising to fix Britain's housing crisis. The plans are ambitious. The construction workforce is not. Here is why the gap between target and delivery keeps growing. When the UK Labour government took office, housing was at the centre of its...
The United States set out to protect domestic industry. Instead, its own builders are caught in the crossfire. Here is what happened when trade policy met a four-million-home deficit. There is a particular kind of irony that runs through America's housing crisis right...
LATEST NEWS
One of the region’s most talked-about development sites has cleared its biggest hurdle. Here is what the approval covers, and what it means for the builders and trades who will eventually deliver it. After years of slow progress, the Dreamworld Masterplan has been...
The draft plan for the former Southern Cross University site firms up one of the region’s biggest post-flood housing projects. Here is where it stands and what builders should be watching. The East Lismore flood recovery site now has a masterplan, and the numbers have...
The consent data says recovery. The activity data says the floor has not arrived. If you have ever tried to explain to a client why a strong pipeline does not pay this month’s wages, this is that argument with a country attached. Stats NZ recorded 39,737 new dwellings...
Silica is one of the slowest, quietest hazards on a building site. A test that reads a worker's breath is trying to catch it before the damage is done, and this month it moved into its next phase. Here is where it is really up to, and what it means for the way you...