New dwelling consents nosedived in December

Property

Dwelling consent figures ended last year on a sour note with little relief in sight for Auckland's growing housing shortage

9th Feb 17, 11:41am by Greg Ninness

The number of new residential building consents issued dropped sharply at the end of last year, with just 2205 new consents issued in December. That was down from 2973 in November, and 333, or 13%, lower than the 2538 issued in December 2015.

It was the lowest number of dwelling consents issued in a month since January last year.

However on an annual basis, the 29,970 dwelling consents issued in the whole of last year was up 10.5% compared to 2015 and more than double the 13,662 consents issued in 2011.

The decline in consents in December was caused by a drop in the number of all dwelling types - standalone houses, apartments, retirement village units and townhouses.

Around the country, major declines occurred in Auckland where 740 new consents were issued in December, compared with 1156 in November and 947 in December 2015.

There were also substantial declines in the number of new dwelling consents issued in the Waikato where 250 were issued in December compared to 340 in November and 333 in December 2015, and in Canterbury where 413 were issued in December compared to 459 in November and 564 in December 2015.

Shortage of homes continues to worsen

The figures provide little relief for struggling home buyers in the overheated Auckland market where surging migration-driven population growth means the demand for housing continues to outstrip supply by a considerable margin and the shortage of homes continues to worsen.

Consents for non-residential construction were also down in December, with consents for 234,000 square metres of non-residential building space issued in the month, compared with 241,000 square metres in November and 292,000 square metres in December 2015.

For the year ended December, the total value of residential consents issued, including those for structural alteration work to existing homes, was $12.53 billion, up 19.1% compared to 2015.

The total value of non-residential consents issued last year was $6.02 billion which was up 1.7% compared to 2015.

See the chart below for the residential consent figures and trends in each region:

Building consents - residential

Select chart tabs

Source: Statistics NZ

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17 Comments

by AK79 | 9th Feb 17, 12:58pm 1486598333

Is there anyone out there that thinks the housing market is actually functioning correctly or even at all? It is time that we got the market working. This means we need to scrap most of the density controls in Auckland, reduced migration (get rid of the student rort is a good place to start), and the government needs to massively build to get he market back into some order. DTI's and LVRs don't reduce the need for people's housing but reduces the ability - we have a housing shortage.

by dictator | 9th Feb 17, 1:03pm 1486598586

Auckland's market would work better if it wasn't full of whingers. I think the design of the new site looks pretty cool and they are sabotaging what looks like a badly needed retirement facility.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/89226693/the-decision-must-b…

by AK79 | 9th Feb 17, 2:28pm 1486603736

I agree - looks alright. We actually need more of the mid-rise through out the city if we are ever going to have any chance of making housing affordable.

by moa man | 9th Feb 17, 2:43pm 1486604625

What we need is a larger exit door. At the airport.

by hobo | 9th Feb 17, 4:27pm 1486610878

More like a larger Devonport ferry terminal to accommodate the 600 purple haired biddies popping over to the cbd for a little rnr and/or popping over to the cruise ship terminal for their yearly island cruise.

by RickStrauss | 9th Feb 17, 4:59pm 1486612792

Problem is you have NIMBYs telling young Kiwis they need to give up the idea of a Kiwi quarter acre section and live in more intensified situations, then resisting that very same intensification.

by Sluggy | 10th Feb 17, 10:10am 1486674639

There also needs to be thought, time and effort put into training young people to build these houses/buildings. We are at absolute skilled labour capacity in the building market in my opinion. .

by keywest | 9th Feb 17, 1:51pm 1486601485

No surprise here, cut down investors portfolio leverage to 40% LVRs and you stop credit. Stop credit and then stuff can't get done

by Wiseguy | 9th Feb 17, 2:07pm 1486602431

Then we can stop the economy all together

by Boatman | 9th Feb 17, 2:19pm 1486603150

LOL the developers and builders went on leave....................... spending all that loot they have made .

by Alex Tarrant | 9th Feb 17, 4:16pm 1486610195

Have updated with video of ACT's David Seymour asking Steven Joyce about NZ construction and building consents at Question Time in Parliament today.

He notes consents per 1000 heads of population have decreased since the 1970s.

Enjoy

by sharetrader | 9th Feb 17, 7:14pm 1486620858

ahh election year, the only year ACT are allowed to ask there own questions and to take the government to account

by ki | 10th Feb 17, 7:47am 1486666047

while occupants per dwelling falls...

by blue meanie | 9th Feb 17, 5:07pm 1486613234

Steven Joyce said yesterday that NZ was going through its biggest boom in housing development in its history.... where is the media calling him out on that?

by Macawsley | 9th Feb 17, 5:38pm 1486615114

They won't - too busy sniggering at Trump, to address, our own government of alternative facts right here.

by Fritz | 9th Feb 17, 8:51pm 1486626693

I stand firm with what I wrote for this website several weeks ago. The only way we'll see an uplift in market led housing activity is enabling ex- urban cluster housing throughout the Auckland region, where development can be feasible. I also stand firm on my article for NBR last April where I called for a review on migration and foreign investment settings - well before any mainstream discussion. And change tax settings.
The issue is easy to resolve - the problem is political apathy / pandering to vested interests....
And the govt needs to build a lot more houses.

by Brendon | 9th Feb 17, 9:29pm 1486628941

Fritz we need to throw the kitchen sink at the housing crisis. We need to allow all the different supply options -we need to remove restrictions on intensification, we need to a remove restrictions on peripheral land development and we should allow ex-urban developments like you argue for.

While we get that up and running we need to slow down demand -immigration, foreign buyers etc.

I made my argument for greater for removing restrictions on building within the city, in places where demand is high here. https://medium.com/@brendon_harre/what-is-the-secret-to-tokyos-affordab…