There was a big jump in the number of residential building consents issued in September, indicating a possible turnaround in the residential construction sector.
According to Statistics NZ, 3747 new residential consents were issued throughout the country in September, which was up 21.7% compared to August and up 27.3% compared to September last year.
It was also the most new dwelling consents issued in any month of the year since November 2022.
The big jump in consent numbers was evident for most dwelling types, with consents for stand alone houses up 16.2% compared to September last year, while apartment consents were up a whopping 57.4%, and townhouses/home units were up 49.8%.
Retirement village units were the only types of housing to go against the trend, with consents for new retirement units down 61.4% in September compared to September last year.
New dwelling consent numbers were also up on an annual basis, with 34,882 new dwellings consented in the 12 months to September this year, up 3.6% compared to the previous 12 months.
That lifted the total estimated value of building work on new dwellings consented in September to $1.611 billion, up 22.1% compared to September last year.
There was also a huge jump in the value of non-residential building work consented, which was $947 million in September, up 47.0% compared to September last year.
That includes both new construction and alterations to non-residential buildings, which range from commercial buildings such as offices, shops, factories and warehouses to public service buildings such as hospitals and schools.
That took the total value of all types of building work consented in September to $2.829 billion, up 29.3% compared to September last year.
The comment stream on this article is now closed.
Building consents - residential
Select chart tabs
Building consents - type
Select chart tabs
18 Comments
What goes UP must come down ... wait a minute!
Can confirm a lot more optimism and demand from many sectors of construction. I'm hiring additional staff for the first time in 5 years, forward orders are solid, and the amount of new enquiry for projects is increasing.
Residential greenfields subdivision sector is still fairly meh though.
Good to hear a positive story on here.
Never many comments on the positive articles I’ve noticed. If this article said building activity is down there be 40 comments happy that the economy is crashing.
So you still believe we can build an economy on selling ever more expensive houses to each other?
Why would Jimbo's comment affirm that assumption?
As the concluding statement from the thread it would be a reasonable question to ask when an expansion of property credit is being promoted as positive....especially when it is such a belief that will support that credit demand.
This article is about construction activity.
The article is about potential activity...the comments may indicate whether that activity progresses.
As stated it is reasonable imo to try to establish whether the level of support will be sufficient to further that activity and these forums are one indication of that support....I am sure you will agree that the industry does not drive the sales (as much as they may try) but rather the willingness/ability of the purchasers of their product.
Which has improved. My gut says this will only increase, much of the current interest and activity is from customers less dependent on credit - they're in good cash positions, and are now moving because there's more certainty about interest rates and general economic stability.
More credit dependent customers will seep through over the coming 12-24 months as sentiment improves and credit gets cheaper.
And how many tradies have we lose...young ones to Oz, older ones just out of the game.
This'll sort itself out once the more easily replaceable jobs are obsoleted by AI.
Until then, good time to work with your hands, limited supply, steady demand.
I was walking to someone in construction last week who had been told by contacts in the timber industry that the big boys were ramping up production as they expected sales to take off next year.
Yay. back to we can build your house in 12 to 18 months time. Don't call us we'll' call you. Yeah right.
Question is, how long will an uptick in construction last over the long run if there's virtually no net immigration?
There's not really much observed correlation between net migration and construction activity.
Bit of a moot question though, they will keep pumping people in over the next few decades.
There has to be over the long term. No one's going to keep building for a stagnant population.
But don't worry, the election is on the horizon so the government will start relaxing the immigration thresholds very soon.
If builds will slow then one would expect building materials to cheapen from lack of demand vs supply, and improvement of existing stock.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.