Build rate below the 2004 peak

New Government data shows the home-building rate is yet to reach its early-2000s peak.

Housing Minister Phil Twyford, who released the data to Stuff, said it showed claims by National Party MPs that New Zealand was in the midst of a record building boom were rubbish.

The rate compares population with residential building consents.

In a 2004 peak 33,251 new buildings were consented, compared to a population of just over 4 million, creating a build rate of 0.81 per cent.

In the 2017 year to June 30,453 buildings were consented compared to a population of almost 4.8 million - creating a build rate of 0.64 percent.

‘‘This shows that in spite of all the hot air about the ‘biggest building boom in New Zealand history’ the really meaningful indicator, the residential build rate per head of population, is way below a recent peak in the early 2000s,’’ Twyford said.

‘‘If you went further back you would see that we are also way below the peak in the 1970s when Norman Kirk was prime minister.’’

Twyford acknowledged that the previous government had got the build rate off the floor after the Global Financial Crisis but said the effect of their policies was already levelling off, when the rate was still far below where it needed to be.

National’s Housing spokesman Michael Woodhouse said Twyford was picking an ‘‘unusual way to frame the discussion’’ now that house prices had flattened out.

He agreed with Twyford that more homes needed to be built, and argued that this was already happening under National.