Apartments boost new building consents

A crane moves construction materials onto the 10-storey apartment tower in the Merchant Quarter, on McCrae Way, New Lynn. Photo / APN

A boost in new apartment consents led to an 11 per cent rise in the number of new dwellings consented in November 2013, Statistics New Zealand said today.

However, excluding apartments, the seasonally adjusted number of new houses fell 0.5 per cent.

In unadjusted terms, 1775 new houses and 492 apartments were consented in November last year.

"November saw the highest number of apartments consented in a month since April 2008. However, apartment numbers usually fluctuate from month to month," industry and labour statistics manager Blair Cardno said.

Auckland accounted for 34 per cent of the consented dwellings in November and Canterbury 24 per cent.

Building consents identified as earthquake-related in Canterbury were valued at $40 million, and included 64 new houses.

"The trend for new houses has been increasing since early 2011 and is at its highest level since early 2008," Mr Cardno said.

The total value of all building work consented in November was $1087 million, which comprised $798 million of planned residential building work and $289 million of planned non-residential building work.