WELLINGTON, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- The average floor area of new homes consented in 2019 was about 21 percent smaller when compared with that 10 years ago, New Zealand statistics department Stats NZ said on Wednesday.
The average floor area of new homes consented in New Zealand in 2019 was 158 square meters, 42 square meters smaller than the peak of 200 square meters in 2010.
"The drop in new home size is primarily due to stand-alone houses getting smaller," Stats NZ construction statistics manager Melissa McKenzie said.
"While stand-alone houses still account for the majority of new homes in New Zealand, an increasing proportion of townhouses, apartments, retirement village units, and other multi-unit homes consented in recent years has also contributed to smaller overall home sizes," she said.
The median floor area of new stand-alone houses consented across New Zealand in 2019 was around 180 square meters, down from just over 200 square meters in 2010. The median floor area of multi-unit homes has hovered around 100 square meters.
The median floor area of new homes in New Zealand's biggest city Auckland decreased around 60 square meters between 2010 and 2019.
In the December 2019 year, over 50 percent of all homes consented in Auckland were multi-unit homes, compared with a low point of about 16 percent in 2010.
