Auckland · 2026 Edition

What It Costs to Fix the Problems in a Building Report (Auckland 2026)

A building report tells you what is wrong with a house, not what it costs to fix: small items are often hundreds of dollars, a failed bathroom, a kitchen or cladding repairs run to tens of thousands, and a full reclad reaches six figures. Price the list before you go unconditional.

You have the report, a list of problems and a condition date a few days away. What you do not have is a dollar figure beside each item. This guide sorts the common findings into three groups, urgent, soon and cosmetic, and gives the Auckland ranges we have already published for each. Where we have no published figure we say so, and we show you how to get your own list priced in time.

The short answer

• Urgent. Water is getting in, or something is unsafe. Tens of thousands for a wet area or a cladding repair; about $166,000–$466,000 for a full reclad of most homes.
• Soon. Worn out but still working. $17,000–$43,000 for most bathrooms; $35,000–$80,000 for a standard family kitchen.
• Cosmetic. It looks tired but does not harm the house. Often hundreds of dollars an item.

The bathroom, kitchen and full reclad ranges are the ones our Instant Estimate gives, and they include GST. The other ranges come from our published Auckland cost guides, linked below, which do not state GST. Every range in a Building Report Price Check includes GST.

Why building reports have no prices

A building inspector records the condition of the house on the day of the visit. Pricing the repairs is a different job. It takes a builder who knows what the work involves and a quantity surveyor (QS), the person who measures building work and puts a cost on it.

So the report gives you wording such as “moisture readings elevated” or “further investigation recommended”, and you are left to guess what that means in dollars. Some buyers walk away from a good house over a long list of small items. Others go unconditional on a house where one line in the report turns out to be the dear one.

To be clear about our part: we do not do building inspections, and we are not an independent valuer or an independent QS. We are builders. We price repairs from the report your inspector has written.

Urgent items: water getting in

Anything that lets water into the structure goes to the top of the list. That means cladding, the junctions around windows and decks, the roof, and the wet areas inside: showers, bathrooms and laundries.

What the report says	What the repair usually is	Our published range
Cladding failure at one window or one junction	Targeted repair of that area	$15,000–$60,000
Failure along one wall or one side of the house	Partial reclad	$40,000–$120,000
Failure at many junctions around the house	Full reclad	About $166,000–$466,000 incl GST: from about $166,000 for a small single-storey home to about $466,000 for a large two-storey home in cedar
Rot in the timber framing behind the cladding	Framing replaced while the cladding is off	The full reclad range already allows for 5% to 45% of the wall framing being replaced. Where a damage report shows widespread decay, the range rises to about $191,000–$578,000
Leaking shower or failed waterproofing in a bathroom	Can mean stripping the room and rebuilding it	A full renovation: $27,000–$34,000 for an ensuite or small bathroom; $31,000–$37,000 for a standard main bathroom
Roof at the end of its life	Roof replacement	Concrete tiles $15,000–$25,000; metal $18,000–$30,000; membrane $20,000–$35,000 or more
Piles, old wiring	Depends on the house	No published figure. Priced for your house in a Price Check.

The cladding figures come from our recladding cost guide and our list of recladding warning signs. The full reclad range runs from a small single-storey house to a two-storey house of 300 m² or more. The bathroom figures come from our bathroom renovation cost guide.

Roof replacement ranges are in our Auckland renovation costs guide. For repiling or rewiring we have not published a range, so we will not give one here. Some repairs also need a building consent, which adds drawings, fees and time.

Soon items: worn out but working

These things still do their job but are near the end of it. They belong in your budget, because you are likely to pay for them while you own the house.

What the report says	What the work usually is	Our published range
Dated bathroom, no leak found	Bathroom renovation	$17,000–$27,000 for a like-for-like refresh; $27,000–$37,000 for a full renovation of an ensuite or main bathroom; $36,000–$59,000 for a large or fully tiled premium bathroom
Kitchen worn but usable	New kitchen in the same layout, budget finish	$22,000–$32,000 for a compact kitchen; $35,000–$45,000 for a standard family kitchen
Kitchen at the end of its life	Full kitchen, standard to premium finish	$45,000–$80,000 for a standard family kitchen; up to $100,000 for a large open-plan one
Possible asbestos in old vinyl, soffits or cladding	Testing first, then removal by a specialist if confirmed	Testing about $80–$180 a sample (indicative NZ market figure)
Old hot water cylinder, gutters, sagging fences, tired decks	Depends on the house	No published figure. Priced for your house in a Price Check.

The bathroom and kitchen ranges include GST and match our Instant Estimate; our kitchen renovation cost guide explains what moves a kitchen up or down the range. The asbestos testing figure is from our asbestos removal guide, which describes its prices as indicative market allowances and not quotes.

In a bathroom, the cost follows the tiling area and whether the plumbing moves, not the floor size. A report that says “bathroom dated” is a different bill from one that says “moisture detected behind shower wall”. The second is urgent.

Cosmetic items

Paint, worn carpet, sticking doors, cracked tiles outside the wet areas, scuffed skirtings, a loose handrail. These fill pages of a report. One by one they are often hundreds of dollars. Across a whole house they add up, so they stay on the list, at the bottom.

One caution: check that a cosmetic item is not a sign of an urgent one. Bubbling paint under a window or a swollen skirting beside a shower can be water, and water is never cosmetic.

If you plan to renovate the whole house anyway, our Auckland renovation cost guide is the better starting point than adding up small repairs.

What a report cannot see

A pre-purchase report is based on what the inspector can see and reach on the day. Walls are not usually opened. That leaves gaps, and the gaps are where the big numbers can hide:

• Framing behind cladding. Our reclad ranges assume sound framing. Where the framing has to be replaced widely, our published guide adds 15–30%.
• What is under a shower or behind a tiled wall. A moisture reading tells you something is wet. It does not tell you how far the damage goes.
• Anything the inspector could not get to. A roof space with no hatch, a subfloor too low to crawl, a locked room. Read that part of the report carefully.

When a report recommends “further investigation” of the cladding, that usually means a weathertightness investigation: moisture readings at the junctions and small test openings where the readings are high. Our published figure for a full investigation report is $2,500–$5,000, depending on the size of the house.

What a priced list looks like

A priced list takes every item in the report and adds three things: how urgent it is, the trade it needs, and a low–high price range. The layout below shows the idea. The items are made up for illustration and we have left the dollar figures out on purpose, because they belong to one house only.

Item from the report	Urgency	Trade	Range incl GST
High moisture reading beside the shower	Urgent	Builder, waterproofer, tiler, plumber	Low–high
Cracked plaster cladding below a window	Urgent	Builder, cladding specialist	Low–high
Gutters rusted along one side	Soon	Roofer	Low–high
Kitchen benchtop swollen at the sink	Soon	Joiner	Low–high
Interior paint marked and worn	Cosmetic	Painter	Low–high

After the list comes a section on what the report could not see, then one summary page. That page is the one you take into the negotiation.

How to get your own list priced

	Instant Estimate	Building Report Price Check	Pre-purchase site visit
Cost incl GST	Free	$199 Standard; $299 Next working day	$449, less what you paid for any AVR report on the same house, up to $199
How long	Online, in minutes	2 NZ working days, or the next working day	Up to 1 hour on site, then a written price update within 2 working days
What you get	One ballpark range for a whole project	Every item in the report priced low–high, marked urgent, soon or cosmetic, with the trade it needs	A builder on site with your report in hand
Best for	A first look at the size of a renovation	Most buyers holding a report	A house where the numbers are big or the report is unclear

The Building Report Price Check. You send us the report and get back the priced list described above. It is priced by a Master Builder with a QS, from our own Auckland jobs. The clock starts when we have received and confirmed your report. The next-working-day service is limited to one a day, so it depends on availability. It is a desktop study: not a quote and not a building inspection.

The pre-purchase site visit. The visit is booked through the agent and there is no travel charge anywhere in Auckland. If you have already paid $199 for a Price Check on that house, the visit costs $250.

The free option. The Instant Estimate gives you one ballpark range for a whole project, online, in a few minutes. It cannot read your report, it does not price individual defects and it does not sort them by urgency.

What to do with the number is not our call. Whether to ask for a price reduction, ask for more time or cancel under your building report condition is a question for your lawyer. How much the bank will lend against the house is a question for the bank or your broker. All of our reports are listed on the cost planning reports page.

Related: Should you buy a plaster home in Auckland? · 12 recladding warning signs · Bad building report: what to do · Inspection, price check or site visit? · Estimate, cost plan or quote?

Building report repair cost FAQs

No. A building report describes the condition of the house and lists the defects found, without prices. Pricing each item is a separate job, which is what a Building Report Price Check does.

A range is a low and a high figure for each item, not a single fixed price. Ours are based on our own Auckland jobs, but a Price Check is a desktop study, so the range is wider where the report could not see behind a wall or under a floor. A site visit narrows it.

Usually, yes. The Standard service takes 2 NZ working days and costs $199 including GST. The Next working day service costs $299, is limited to one a day and depends on availability. The clock starts when we have received and confirmed your report. If you need more time than you have, ask your lawyer about extending the date.

We price what the report says and list what it could not see as a separate section. Where the wording is too loose to price tightly, the range is wider. That is when a pre-purchase site visit, or the further investigation the inspector recommended, is worth the money.

No. It is a desktop study that gives a price range for each item in your report. It is not a quote and not a building inspection.

The Price Check names the trade each item needs. Electrical work must be done by a registered electrician, and plumbing and gas work by licensed tradespeople. Cladding and wet-area repairs are best run by one builder who is responsible for the whole job.

It can, as a credit. “If AVR does the work within 12 months, your report fee comes off the contract. It counts only against a signed contract and is never refunded as cash.”