Apartments lift new housing consents

Apartments lift new housing consents – Media release

The seasonally adjusted number of consents for new houses (including apartments) increased 9.4 percent in December 2012, Statistics New Zealand said today. Consents for non-apartment houses decreased 1.0 percent. Apartment numbers can vary a lot from month to month.

"Apartments boosted the increase in new housing consented last month," industry and labour statistics manager Blair Cardno said. "In December, 232 new apartments were consented, and just over half of these were in Auckland and Wellington."

Since the latest low point in March 2011, a clear trend has emerged showing an increase in new houses, both including and excluding apartments.

Housing consent numbers for December 2012, compared with December 2011, were:
• 1,381 new houses, including apartments (up 23 percent)
• 1,149 new houses, excluding apartments (up 17 percent)
• 232 new apartments (up 57 percent).

Auckland led the increase in the number of new houses in December 2012, up 140 from a year ago.

Earthquake-related building consents in Canterbury totalled $45 million in December 2012.

Annual number of new houses consented rises

In the 2012 year compared with the 2011 year, the number of consents for new houses increased by 3,267 (24 percent) to 16,929. This was the largest number of new houses consented in a calendar year since 2008.

The regions with the largest number of new houses consented were:
• Auckland, up 810 (21 percent) to 4,582
• Canterbury, up 1,642 (69 percent) to 4,037.

Data for building consents is obtained from all territorial authorities in New Zealand.

ENDS

For more information about these statistics:
• Visit Building Consents Issued: December 2012
•
• Open the attached files
• http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1301/BuildingConsentsIssuedDec12.pdf
http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1301/bcidec12tables.xls

© Scoop Media