Residential building consents rose strongly last year and finished 2025 on a particularly firm note.
According to Statistics NZ, 36,619 new dwelling consents were issued in 2025, up 9.0% compared to 2024.
Consent issuance was particularly strong in the second half of last year, with the 3128 consents issued in December up 26.2% compared to December 2024.
The total value of building work for new dwellings consented last year was $16.617 billion, plus another $2.227b of structural alteration work, taking the total value of residential building work consented last year to $18.833b. That's up 7.1% compared to 2024 (figures rounded).
Stand-alone houses remained the most popular type of new dwelling consented last year, but only just.
Consents were issued for 16,635 new stand-alone houses in 2025, just ahead of 16,139 townhouses, followed by 2359 apartments and 1486 retirement village units.
Apartment consents had the highest growth rate last year, up 19.1% compared to 2024. Retirement units posted their third consecutive annual decline, down 12.5%, following declines of 25.1% in 2024 and 23.3% in 2023.
Most of the main centres showed strong growth in new dwelling consent numbers last year led by the Wellington Region's 18%, followed by Auckland, Canterbury and Otago all on 12% and Waikato 11%.
However, Bay of Plenty went against the trend with a 13.2% decline in new dwelling consents last year.
That was the fourth consecutive year the number of new homes consented in the Bay of Plenty has declined.
While the outlook for residential construction across most of the country looks positive based on the numbers above, the same can't be said for the non-residential construction sector, which includes everything from shops, offices and factories to schools and hospitals.
The total floor area of new, non-residential buildings consented declined for the fourth consecutive year to 2.134 million square metres in 2025, down from 3.111m sqm in 2021 (-31.4% over four years).
The total annual value of non-residential building work consented has declined for three consecutive years to $8.874b in 2025 (-6.5%) from $9.486 billion in 2022.
Altogether, the total value of all types of building work consented last year was $27.717 billion, up 3.0% compared to 2024, which followed a 5.1% decline in 2024 and an 11.9% decline in 2023.
That suggested a relatively modest turn around in potential building activity projections last year.
The first chart below shows the number of consents issued each month by dwelling type (houses, units, retirement units etc), and the second chart shows the number of dwellings consented each month by region.
Building consents - type
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Building consents - residential
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2 Comments
No surprises there, we know the current government policies are fuelling our infatuation with property instead of growing productive assets, while the economy has been in the doldrums with businesses struggling...
We just came off a bit of a boom in commercial and industrial construction.
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