The building industry showed tentative signs of a lift in activity in the June quarter (Q2), driven by an increase in residential construction levels.
According to Statistics NZ's Value of Building Work survey, $8.151 billion of new construction work was commenced in Q2 this year. That's up 5.2% compared to Q2 last year. It's the first quarterly increase, versus the same quarter of the previous year, since Q4 2023, and brings an end to nine consecutive quarterly declines.
The increase was due to a lift in new residential construction, while non-residential construction continues to lag.
Provisionally, $5.202 billion of residential building work was commenced in Q2 this year, up 10.8% from Q2 last year.
However, non-residential building work, which includes commercial buildings such as offices and factories, as well as non-commercial buildings such as schools and hospitals, continued to decline, with $2.948b of non-residential work commenced in Q2 this year, down 3.4% compared to Q2 last year.
That was the lowest value of non-residential building work in Q2 since 2022.
The total amount of new building work (residential and non-residential) was highest in Auckland at $3.207b in Q2 this year, which was up 3.7%.
That was followed by Canterbury with $1.439b in new building work in Q2, up 13.9%. Wellington went against the trend with $591 million of new building work in Q2 this year, down 8.9%.
Over the 12 months to June, Waikato has overtaken Wellington in the amount of building work being undertaken, with $692m of new building work undertaken in Q2 this year, which was up 11.6%.
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