New building consents showing signs of decreasing

Building consents for Auckland homes rose in June to 704 from 599.

Residential building activity is continuing to recover annually but on a seasonally adjusted basis, the latest monthly figure showed a drop.

Statistics NZ data just out showed 24,766 residential consents were issued nationally in the year to February, up on the 21,848 consents issued in the 12 months ending February, 2014.

Neil Kelly, business indicators manager, said activity had rebounded.

"The trend for new dwellings has more than doubled since March 2011.

"But it is now showing signs of decreasing after generally increasing for almost four years," he said.

That is because the seasonally adjusted number of new dwellings consented fell 6.3 per cent last month so that excluding apartments, this number fell 1.4 per cent.

Building consents were issued last month for 1758 new dwellings including apartments, 160 apartments, including 28 retirement village units and 1598 non-apartment dwellings.

The unadjusted value of building work consented in February was more than $1.2 billion.

For last month compared to February last year, residential work was up $43 million (5.9 per cent) to $769 million and non-residential work was up $93 million (25 per cent) to $469 million.

Number of dwelling consents issued in NZ
(Years to February)
2010: 14,971
2011: 15,025
2012: 14,124
2013: 17,481
2014: 21,848
2015: 24,766

See the full report here