Ankit Sharma: Master Builders CEO on the State of the Sector Report, consumer confidence

There's cautious optimism in the construction sector and hopes the economy will improve.  

The Master Builders State of the Sector Report cites remaining demand issues like consumer confidence.  

The report finds 66% of people describe their recent build as a positive and a similar number of people report no significant delays. 

CEO Ankit Sharma told Mike Hosking regions are leading the way while urban centres like Auckland and Wellington are still facing headwinds, but there’s a strong pipeline. 

He says they’re transitioning from survival mode into a place of, hopefully, sustainable recovery.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
As Donald Trump would say, here we go insight into

(00:02):
our building sector, we find optimism, we find better times ahead.
Sixty four percent have stronger order books. That's up from
just fifty one percent last year. So that's a material gain.
And Kisharma is the Master Builder CEO and is with us.
Morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning, mak.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
So what do you got fingers crossed and you're hoping
or you're feeling pretty solid about this?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Oh, we are feeling pretty solid about that. So what
we are seeing is regents are leading the way. So
strong export prices are boosting incomes and confidence. So Billers
and those regents are doing well. Urban centers like Oakland
and Wellington are still facing some headwinds. But as you said,
you know, sixty four percent of Billers now reporting strong pipelines.

(00:44):
So we think we are transitioning from our survival more
into a place I hope of sustainable recovery.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Good stuff. The council issues that are raised in the report,
are you know, consenting and all that sort of stuff.
Will those things you think be fixed the new laws
as issued by the government, I.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Believe so, So I think the systemic change the government
has done instead of trying to do patch meal, you know,
looking at one thing or the other. They've kind of
looked at the whole system and interconnection of some of
these issues, so you know, you can do busier consolidation,
but if you don't take the risk away from the
councils who are ultimately trying to protect the right payers
and move to a proportional liability system. They're also encouraging

(01:25):
councils by putting tighter time fiance on their turn around
times for consents, to start using more technologies like remote
inspections and digital records. So I'm very confident with all
these changes, with time, we'll start seeing improvements around contenting.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
What sort of these numbers, What sort of buildings are
we talking about. We're talking developments or we're talking one off,
so we're talking single homes or apartments or just the
whole lot.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
That's a good question. So where we are seeing the
biggest improvement are the high end buildings, So I think
that's as confidence is coming in. People who've got money
are definitely entering into the market, so those are definitely
picking up. Renovations are definitely picked up. We've seen that
developments are still a little bit challenged to get the
development across the line. You know, you need to get
funding from the banks, and banks have been still cautious.

(02:10):
So I have a feeling the high end of the
market is moving, the renovation is moving, and over the
next six to twelve months will probably start seeing the
developments will start moving.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
To fantastic well I hope it works for you. An Kachama,
who's the master bill a CEO, were brought to I
saw an apartment in Wellington listed this week and it
was it was a new apartment and it was at
a price I'd never seen before in Wellington. It was
in excess of five million dollars and it wasn't a
big apartment. It was one hundred and eighty square meetings,
so I did the square It was thirty thousand dollars

(02:39):
a square meter. So when you're paying thirty thousand dollars
a square metia, you're into the millions before you know it.
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