Building consents were issued for 2271 new homes throughout the country in March, up 29% on the 1758 consents issued in February, but still well short of last year's peak of 2420 issued in November, according to Statistics NZ.
In Auckland, where demand for housing is greatest, consents were issued for 756 new dwellings in March, up 43% on the 528 consents issued in February, well shy of the 967 issued in November last year.
Within the Auckland region, the biggest area of activity was Albany where 208 dwelling consents were issued in March, followed by Orakei with 108 consents.
After Auckland, the regions with the greatest number of new dwelling consents issued in March were Canterbury 588, Waikato 219, Wellington 204, and Bay of Plenty 134.
Of the 2271 new dwellings that were consented last month, 1640 were houses, 70 were apartments, 170 were retirement village units and 382 were townhouses flats and units, meaning stand alone houses are still the most popular form of new housing in this country by a substantial margin.
On an annual basis, 25,038 new dwellings were consented in the year to March 2015, compared to 22,372 in the year to March 2014.
However Statistics NZ said the trend for new dwelling consents had flattened in recent months.
The figures will provide little joy for hopeful property buyers in Auckland, where it is estimated that 13,000 new homes a year need to be built just to keep pace with increasing demand fuelled by burgeoning migration.
The total value of building work consented in March was $1.4 billion, of which $925 million was for residential buildings and $427 million for non-residential buildings such as commercial premises and public buildings such as schools and hospitals.
In the non-residential building sector, the greatest amount of consent activity in the year to March was for $1.227 billion of office buildings, up 20.8% on the previous year and the fourth straight year of double digit growth.
That was followed by consents for $782 million of educational building work, which was up 38.6% on the previous 12 months, $725 million of retail buildings, up 20.5% on the previous year, $570 million of storage buildings, up 23.3% and $555 million of industrial building work, up 14.8%.
Building consents - type
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1 Comments
Would it not be better to compare March 2015 with March 2014 instead of November?
25k homes should easily be enough to accommodate the migration and population growth. The average Mrs Wang is looking for a house valued at 600k which rules out most of Auckland, and looking at what that buys in the rest of the country compared to Auckland you have to ask yourself, why Auckland?
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