Apartments Drive Fall in New Homes Consented in October
Only 78 apartments were consented in October 2017, down 66 percent from October 2016, Stats NZ said today. The
seasonally adjusted number of all new homes consented fell 9.6 percent in October compared with September, when consents
fell 2.5 percent.
"Apartments tend to be really volatile month to month,” construction statistics manager Melissa McKenzie said.
“October’s figure is the lowest number we have seen since April 2016, although we know there are more apartments in the
pipeline. We don’t include dwellings in the consent statistics until the final stages of work are consented, when we get
the highest value for the project."
Building consent statistics count the number of individual apartments consented, rather than the number of apartment
buildings consented.
Over 75 percent of apartments consented in the last 12 months were in Auckland.
Despite a fall in total apartments consented in October, monthly consents for Auckland held up well, due to increases in
consents for stand-alone houses, retirement village units and townhouses, particularly in Howick, Manukau, and North
Shore.
Some 944 new homes were consented in Auckland in October, more than the average for the previous 12 months when 10,317
new homes were consented. The increase in Auckland was more than offset by falls in Wellington, Bay of Plenty, and
Northland in October 2017 compared with October 2016.
On an annual basis, 30,866 new homes were consented in the October 2017 year nationally, compared with 30,225 in the
October 2016 year.
ENDS