KEY POINTS:
WELLINGTON - Signs of cooling are appearing in the residential building sector with the seasonally adjusted number of new dwelling units authorised in November falling 12 per cent from the month before.
It was the second decrease in a row following a 3.6 per cent fall in October, figures released today by Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) show.
Excluding apartments, seasonally adjusted numbers fell 4.8 per cent in November and 0.6 per cent in October.
Building consents were issued for 2232 new dwellings in November, 2.7 per cent lower than the 2295 in November 2005.
The value of those dwellings was $543 million in November, up 5.9 per cent from the $513 million in November 2005.
The value of all consents issued for residential buildings was $667m, $24m (3.7 per cent) higher than in November 2005, SNZ said.
The value of consents issued for non-residential buildings was $376m, $75m (17 per cent) lower than in November 2005.
Consents were issued for 179 new apartments in November 2006, compared to 373 in October and 493 in September. Apartment consents are volatile and vary considerably from month to month.
The trend for the number and value of new dwelling units appeared to have eased in recent months, but figures needed to be treated with caution until more data was available, SNZ said.
The trend for the value of non-residential building consents remained at a high level.
The value of consents issued for all buildings in November was $1.04 billion, $51 million (4.7 per cent) lower than in November 2005.
For the year ended November, the total value of consents for all buildings was $11.25 billion, up $323m (3 per cent) from the November 2005 year.
The value of consents for residential buildings rose $441m for the year, while those for non-residential buildings fell $118m.
The number of consents issued for new dwelling units in the year to November was 26,514, up 520 units (2 per cent) from the previous November year.
The Auckland region saw a large drop in the number of new dwelling units authorised, from 778 in October to 482 in November, while Wellington had a rise from 133 to 200 and Northland a rise from 102 to 159.
- NZPA
