Building consents for new houses hit a five-year high last month, with rises across most areas of the country

Building consents for new houses hit a five-year high last month, with rises across most areas of the country, Statistics New Zealand said today.

The seasonally adjusted number of non-apartment dwellings increased 13%, the largest increase since August 2011, when there was a 16% rise.

However, the much talked about Auckland market is still showing relatively modest signs of recovery from its recent very low levels of activity. In the first four months of this year there have been 1669 housing approvals in Auckland, which would put the city on target for about 5000 new houses this year - well short of the kind of levels being aimed for in the new Auckland Housing Accord.

Nationally, there were 1755 new houses, including apartments, consented in April 2013.

This was the highest number since April 2008, when 2373 were consented, including 771 apartments.

Excluding apartments, there were 1541 houses approved in April, which is 41% ahead of the number approved in the same month a year ago.

Among the 214 apartments during the month, 115 were retirement village units.

"April was a bumper month for building consents for new houses across the country. While the numbers were higher in Canterbury and Auckland this month, compared with April 2012, the rest of the country also made a significant contribution to the increase,” industry and labour statistics manager Blair Cardno said.

"In particular, Wellington and Otago regions together consented 185 apartments, boosting new house numbers there.”

The seasonally adjusted number of new houses, including apartments, increased 19% in April 2013, up from an 8.3% fall in March, when the figures were affected by the timing of Easter.

Monthly changes in the seasonally adjusted number can be volatile, partly due to the rise and fall in apartment numbers.

Earthquake-related building consents in Canterbury were valued at NZ$52 million, including 49 new houses. Non-residential building consents were valued at NZ$308 million in April 2013, up 35% compared with April 2012. Data for building consents is obtained from all territorial authorities in New Zealand.

Regionally, some of the key figures in April, when compared with the same month a year ago included: Wellington up 159 (including 82 apartments in Wellington city and 63 retirement village units in Kapiti Coast district) to 238, Canterbury up 115 to 397, Auckland up 71 to 431,  and Otago up 62 (including 40 retirement village units in Dunedin city) to 115.

ASB economist Christina Leung said dwelling consents issued in Auckland increased 14.3% in April by ASB's seasonally-adjusted estimates.

"But this follows a sharp decline in the previous month. Overall, the increase in house-building activity in Auckland is not enough to keep up with demand, particularly as net migration inflows continue to recover.

"We expect housing supply constraints will remain acute in Auckland over the coming year, and this will continue to drive relatively strong house price inflation in the region," she said.

"Dwelling consent issuance had been strong in Auckland over early 2013 as stronger house price inflation encouraged house-building in the region, but this increase in house-building demand appears to be slowing. This is a concern, particularly as the recovery in net migration inflows is likely to put further demand pressures on the housing market over the coming year."