Any hopes this
time might be different have been dashed as company failures have begun to mount.
Bay of Plenty's Oceanside Homes, two South Auckland developers and Wellington's Armstrong Downes Commercial have all gone under in the past few months. There are fears more will follow.
Meanwhile, we're consenting new homes at record levels - some 50,000 approvals were issued in the year to April 2022.
Just as the country seems to have finally resolved some regulatory pressure around the availability of land, the industry has hit the wall on building costs.
Inflation, materials shortages, extremely high volumes of construction, a labour shortage, challenges of gaining access to finance, and ongoing impacts of the pandemic have combined to exacerbate legacy issues long simmering under the surface.
All this is now playing out amid falling house prices.
If conditions conspire to stop the sector dead then we will have failed in our collective efforts to address the housing shortage - again.
We have to shake the endless boom and bust cycle if we really want to address the cost of housing.
Property development and construction are inherently risky businesses. The time involved from planning to completion of a project leaves all involved vulnerable to dramatic market shifts.
The immediate victims are those who have bought off plans and wait anxiously to hear news from receivers.
But there is a ripple effect through the sector as companies fail, with other builders and contractors often joining the list of those owed.
The Reserve Bank (RBNZ) last month identified the faltering sector as one of the key concerns in the immediate economic outlook.
It warned that interest rate rises and house price falls could lead to "a large decline" in construction sector activity.
"In such a scenario, we would expect to see more developer insolvencies and a large number of incomplete or cancelled projects... This would result in a steep decline in residential investment."
That could lead us back to where we started on the housing supply-and-demand curve.
While the situation looks grim right now, surely it is not too late to get ahead of the problems facing the sector.
Unlike the crashes in 1987 and 2008, this downturn is playing out in slow motion.
We've watched pressure building in the sector over the past year and we can see where it is headed.
Confidence is key.
If the Government wants to head the recession off at the pass, then it needs to move with urgency to address competition and supply issues.
It might also take a fresh look at some of the investment regulations which were needed to curb the price peaks during the boom.
If it can't help with the cost crunch in the sector, then much of the good work on opening up land supply will have been in vain.
