New home consents down 26% in April

New home consents in April were down by more than a quarter on last year, and the rate is unlikely to pick up over the next two to three years, one economist says.

There were 2757 new homes consented last month, a decline of 26% on April last year, according to Stats NZ’s latest figures.

It was the third consecutive month the number of consents was down by over 25% compared with the same month last year.

Over the year, there were 45,962 consents issued, a 9.3% decline on the annual figure at the same time last year. Numbers were down in all regions except Tasman, Marlborough and the West Coast.

Stats NZ construction and property statistics manager Michael Heslop said the trend for the number of new homes consented peaked at 51,015 in May last year, and had been decreasing since then.

The number of standalone houses consented dropped 23% to 19,138 in the year to April.

But consents for multi-unit homes, which include townhouses, apartments, retirement village units and flats, were up 4.1% to 26,824 over the same period.

Heslop said the annual number of stand-alone houses consented decreased over most of last year, but it was largely offset by the increase in multi-unit homes. ‘‘The easing of multi-unit homes consented this year has contributed to the overall annual decrease.’’

Infometrics economist Joel Glynn said last month’s decline in consents had taken annual consents to 9.9% below the May 2022 peak

Multi-unit consents continued to decline at a slower pace than consents for standalone houses, but they had still softened substantially over the last year, he said.

Glynn said the strong pipeline of new homes already consented would maintain a solid base of residential construction activity, but consents were unlikely to increase over the next two to three years.