The number of consents issued for new homes fell 9.5 per cent during May, following a 13.4 per cent rise during April, Statistics New Zealand says.
When the volatile apartment category is included, consents for new houses fell 9.6 per cent, following an 8.4 per cent rise the previous month.
Business statistics manager Louise Holmes-Oliver said the "increased variability" of the stats reflected short-term behaviour.
"If the economy was tracking along fine, we would not expect to see that amount of variation in the results, but because we are coming out of a low point in the economy, that variation is a normal feature," she said.
The long-term trend for numbers of building consents has been increasing since March 2009, however the level is still 30 per cent lower than the June 2007 peak.
During May residential building consents were issued for 1333 dwellings and 27 new apartment units, compared to May last year when just 963 consents were issued for new homes.
ANZ economist Mark Smith said a material pick-up of building consents was unlikely until later in the year, as net migration eased and the house market remained soft.
"Today's outturn follows a sequence of highly volatile readings for consents, with the fall in ex-apartment consents offsetting much of the April rise."
The value of residential building consents was $481 million, while the value of non-residential building consents was $289 million.
Apartments contributed just 2 per cent to the number of new dwellings during May, against an average of 7.1 per cent.
Holmes-Oliver said apartment numbers could vary considerably from month to month.
Waikato, Wellington and Canterbury recorded the largest increase in consents when compared to last year, while Auckland suffered the biggest fall, with the number of consents for units there falling by 109 to 321. There were 223 less apartments authorised last month, Statistics New Zealand said.
