House building rises in New Zealand but still well below peak levels of 2004
More new houses are being built in New Zealand but the numbers are still well below what is needed and below the peak in 2004, the latest figures from Statistics New Zealand show. In May some 1,971 new houses, including apartments, were consented with the Auckland and Canterbury regions accounting for 57% of the national total.
‘New housing numbers kept on rising in May and the trend is now 73% higher than the historic low point of March 2011,’ said industry and labour statistics manager Blair Cardno. He pointed out that the trend for the number of new houses consented, including apartments, has been rising for the last two years and is now similar to the level five years ago but is still 37% lower than the peak of January 2004.
The seasonally adjusted number of new houses, including apartments, increased 1.3% in May, following a 21% increase in April. The value of consents for all buildings, including both new work and alterations, was $1,160 million in May 2013. Residential building consents came to $726 million, and non-residential building work of $434 million is planned. Building consents reached almost $1.2 billion in May. While the figures don’t take inflation into account, May’s total was the highest monthly value since August 2007,’ Cardno added.
Quote from PropertyCommunity.com : “Interest rates need to fall in Australia to boost the country’s housing industry as there will be an acute shortage of homes by the end of the decade if more are not built, it is claimed.”
Earthquake related building consents in Canterbury reached a milestone in May 2013, when the value of consents over the 33 months from September 2010 topped $1 billion. This comprised $401 million for residential work, including 885 new houses, $617 million for non-residential work, and $30 million worth of non-building construction.
Meanwhile, average property prices in Auckland showed little movement last month, up less than 1%, according to the latest data from Barfoot and Thompson. The firm says that while the average sales price points to relative stability, the median selling price has shown a modest increase, which at $590,000 for June is $20,000 higher than in May and is $10,000 higher than in March.
Managing director Peter Thompson said that the number of properties on the market has shrunk to an all time low while demand for properties is unprecedented and competition is intense with homes selling within a tighter time frame than at any time in the last decade. ‘At the end of June we had only 2,873 properties on our books, the first time our end of month listings have dipped below 3,000 properties in the past 11 years. Listings in June were 5.3% lower than the number of listings in May, and 29.5% lower than in June last year,’ he added.
Property sales at 1,059 meant that June was the fourth consecutive month that sales were in excess of 1,000 for the month. The last time sales were this consistently high was nine years ago in the first half of 2004.