New Zealand faces well-documented housing challenges. Many homes suffer from damp, mould and poor insulation. Adding to this, they have also become increasingly unaffordable.

New Zealand’s story is one of growth. From 2 million people in 1955, the population climbed to 3.9 million in 2000 and 5 million by 2020. Of the 33% increase since the millennium, the past two decades have seen steady growth, with almost half (16%) occurring between 2012-2022.

However, the supply of new homes has failed to meet increased need and demand. Some 568,000 homes were approved from 2002-2022, of which 474,000 were built. Average annual delivery sat at 20,455 per year from 2002-2012 and 25,491 over the period 2012-2022.

Figure 1: Proportion of private dwelling built by decade

Source: JLL

Solutions nonetheless exist. In 1962, President John F Kennedy announced that the United States would put a man on the moon within a decade. This quickly extended the role of government from fixing market failures to cocreating new products and technologies, forcing new ways of thinking, driving greater entrepreneurship, and focusing on the possibilities available through private-sector partnerships.

The same ‘moonshot’ mindset has the potential to support New Zealand’s residential sector. We can need to start by asking different, mission-oriented questions. If it’s challenging for the same-old organisations to deliver the same-old products, what new models and products exist? If demand is too hard to satisfy in certain locations, how might the economy be rebalanced to spread this more evenly?

The focus must be on supporting diversification. We can promote dense, liveable cities as an antidote to low-density suburbs. We can also seek to improve access to finance for construction firms, create new shared-ownership products, promote purpose-built rental homes and re-balance the economy. The key is to think innovatively and act proactively. The time to start is now.