Apartments lead fall in new building consents
A big drop in new apartment building led a 6.7% drop in the number of new dwellings approved in New Zealand in October, latest figures show.
Thursday, December 1st 2005, 8:51AM
A seasonally adjusted 1963 new dwellings were authorised in the month, Statistics New Zealand (SNN) says.
The number of new consents in October was 26% lower than the same month a year earlier.
Consents hit a nine-month high in March as builders rushed in to beat law changes and higher fees, which came into effect on April 1. Approvals in April fell to their lowest level since January 2002.
The dwelling consents series is volatile because of fluctuations in the number issued for new apartments, which accounted for 9% of October's new consents.
Apartments were the big loser in the October consent figures, down 76% on the same month last year. Most of the fall-off in building work was in Auckland, with fewer than 500 house and apartment consents in October – less than half the corresponding number last year.
In the year ended October 31, there were 26,370 new dwelling unit consents issued, down 18% on the previous September year.
The total value of consents issued in October for all residential buildings, including alterations and additions, was NZ$557 million, down 8.7% on the same month a year ago.
Master Builders Federation chief executive Pieter Burghout says the apartment market has bottomed out, or fallen away, “which is really good, given how high it was".
He says the residential market has also fallen, but that had been expected and the commercial construction sector was holding steady.
| « Prices up, sales down, REINZ figures show | Residential market remains buoyant » |
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