Consents drop amid supply furor

Dearth of apartment consents drives worrying drop in new dwelling consents in Auckland, the latest Statistics New Zealand data reveals.

Tuesday, May 31st 2016, 12:00PM

by Miriam Bell

Auckland’s housing supply shortage and the problems it is causing, which include median house prices nearly 10 times the median income, have dominated headlines of late.

Estimates of the shortage vary from 20,000 to 50,000 but it is generally agreed that the city should be building around 13,000 – 14,000 dwellings per annum to keep pace with demand.

This equates to a build rate of 1,100 to 1,200 new dwellings per month.

Until recently, Auckland’s consents trend indicated that, over the last year, was around 10,000 – which is still well below the amount needed.

But now, to add to the problems, that trend appears to have taken a worrying turn for the worse.

he latest building consent data from Statistics New Zealand shows that the number of consents issued in Auckland dropped in April 2016.

The city saw 699 new consents issued in April. This was down on the 788 consents issued in March.

It was also down 213 from the same month in 2015, which was a decrease of 23%.

Statistics New Zealand business indicators senior manager Neil Kelly said that, nationwide, building consents for new dwellings are at a higher level than last year, but growth has eased in recent months.

“The easing trend for new dwellings has been caused by a lull in apartment consents, especially in Auckland.

“However, apartment numbers tend to be quite volatile. For stand-alone houses, the trend is still increasing.”

In April 2016, building consents were issued for 2,361 new dwellings nationwide. This was a year-on-year increase of 12%.

Once seasonally adjusted, the number of new dwellings consented rose 6.6% in April, following a fall of 9.7% in March.

Kelly said the seasonally adjusted number has fluctuated in recent months, and the trend is easing.

But the annual dwellings total was still at an 11-year high, with 28,000 new dwellings consented over the past year as compared to 25,000 the year before.

Westpac industry economist David Norman said that, while April saw a slight rebound in consents from March’s fall, it wasn’t the level of rebound they expected.

He said there were lumpy influences on the national data – with Canterbury seeing a spike in consents due to a large number of retirement village unit consents, for example.

“But in Auckland, consents were down again month-on-month in seasonally adjusted terms (around 8%).

“The decline was mostly due to the lack of new multi-units being consented this month, as was the case last month.”

This second month of weakness does cause Westpac to feel a little unease about the longer term track of residential consents in Auckland, Norman said.

“A third weak month in May would be a real worry.”

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