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
17 Comments
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.
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…
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.
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…
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