Demand for new houses drives up consents

Consents to build new dwellings continue to recover from their trough in March last year but issuance is still running at only about three-quarters of the levels prevailing during the housing boom.

New dwellings authorised in November, excluding the volatile apartments sector and adjusted for seasonal effects, were 3.1 per cent higher than in October, Statistics New Zealand reported and were back at levels last seen in May 2008.

The trend in consents issuance troughed last March at levels around half those prevailing between 2002 and 2007. Since then they have recovered about half that decline.

November's 3.1 per cent increase came on top of a seasonally adjusted 11 per cent rise in October.

The track for building consents has mirrored house prices, which dropped 10 per cent from their peak in late 2007, as measured by Quotable Value's index, and have since recovered half of that decline, albeit on low volumes.

QV's valuation manager Glenda Whitehead said vacant land sales had dropped dramatically in 2008 to the lowest level since 1980 but, like residential building consents, had trended upward again last year.

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Posted: 15 Jan 2010

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