New house trend slowing down

Consents at five-year high but easing.

Despite an upward trend for new houses over the past two years, the rate of increase is showing signs of slowing. “The trend for the number of new houses, including apartments, has increased 71% since the historic low point of March 2011,” said Blair Cardno of Statistics NZ. The trend is at its highest point in five years, although still 38% less than at the peak in January 2004.

July 2013 saw 1,893 new home consents, including 218 apartments, of which 133 were retirement village units. Compared with June 2013, the seasonally adjusted number of new homes, including apartments, fell 0.8%; those excluding apartments rose 3.1%

Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Taranaki, Manawatu, Wellington, Marlborough, Canterbury and Otago all reported more consents for new homes, including apartments, in July 2013 compared with July 2012.

In particular, Auckland saw an increase of 148 consents issued up to 556, Wellington went up by 54 to 169 and Canterbury rose by 136 to 507. This is the highest number for Canterbury since March 2005, including 238 new dwellings in Christchurch, 124 in Selwyn and 94 in Waimakariri.

Apartments consented in July 2013, compared with July 2012, were down 55 in Auckland (to 90) and down 33 in Canterbury (to 37). Bay of Plenty was up 20 (from zero) and Wellington was up 51 (to 71).

Consented non-residential work was valued at $425m in July 2013, compared with $269m in the previous month and $346m the same time last year.Major contributors were offices and administration buildings ($86m), storage buildings ($70m), education buildings ($55m), and factories and industrial buildings ($55m).

Quake-related building consents in July 2013 were valued at $36m for residential (63 new homes) and $25m for non-residential. The value of earthquake-related building consents since 4 September 2010 is $1.2bn.

The total value of all building consents in July 2013 was $1.1bn. Compared with the year ended July 2012, the value of consents for the year end July 2013 was up 20% for all buildings (to $11.2bn). Residential consents increased 26% (to $7.1bn) and non-residential increased 11% (to $4.1bn).