House building activity was on the rise again last month after taking a bit of a pause in January, with figures excluding apartments rising to a nearly six-year high.
Statistics New Zealand said that there was a seasonally-adjusted 3% rise in building consents issued for new dwellings, excluding apartments, in February.
The seasonally-adjusted figures were in fact the strongest reported since April 2008.
This compared with a revised fall of 1.1% reported for January - which had followed two strong months of growth.
In February there were 1702 non-apartment dwellings consented, while there were just 66 apartments approved, including 16 retirement village units.
The apartments figures are very volatile from month to month. If the apartment figures are included in the overall figures for February, then the month's consented figures are actually down 1.7%.
However, this follows extremely high numbers of apartments consented in November and December, which provided a sharp boost to the overall figures in those months.
Westpac senior economist Michael Gordon said it was encouraging that the increase in consents was led by Auckland, "rising to a new cycle high in seasonally-adjusted terms" after a period of decline over the second half of last year. "Consents were also generally higher across the rest of the North Island and in Canterbury."
Looking at the unadjusted figures, in Auckland in February there were 436 dwellings approved, excluding apartments, which was up some 27.1% on the comparable figure a year ago.
On a national level, even including the apartment consents, the overall figure for February is still 7.3% higher than in October 2013.
Stats NZ said the "trend" for new dwellings, excluding apartments, was at its highest level since December 2007, and is 85% higher than the most-recent low point in March 2011. However, it is still 21% below the
series maximum in September 2003.
Excluding apartments, 11 of the 16 regions consented more new dwellings in February 2014 than in February 2013.
The regions with the greatest increases were:
- Canterbury – up 120, to 520
- Auckland – up 93, to 436
- Wellington – up 33, to 114
- Northland – up 24, to 69.
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