What happened to the total number of houses being built? The number of consents to build houses in New Zealand last year, the stats out a couple of weeks ago—it's 41,000; more than 40,000. In 2017, it was 30,000. That's a massive increase in the number of houses being built, and we're now building more houses than population growth needs, and this year is going to be just as good if not better than last year.