About 1700 new dwellings a month are currently being completed in Auckland but that could start to decline considerably later in the year
By Greg Ninness
The number of new dwellings being completed in Auckland continues at a high level, although it probably peaked late last year.
Although there are still plenty of figures suggesting new dwelling completions in the Auckland region are running at a record high, the likelihood is numbers are already easing back from last year's peaks.
Auckland Council issued 1677 Code Compliance Certificates for new dwellings in April, which took the total issued for the 12 months to April to 19,376. That was the highest number of new dwellings consented in any 12 month period since Auckland Council began collating the figures in their current format in 2013.
The rolling monthly average, over 12 months, was also a record high of 1615 in April.
However, the simple fact is that more than 1900 new dwellings a month were completed in each of September, October and November last year and nothing since has come close to that, with 1583 completed in February this year, 1728 completed in March and 1677 in April. See the chart below for the longer term trend.
Code Compliance Certificates are issued when a building is completed and so are the best indicator of current new housing supply, while building consents are issued prior to building work commencing and so are an indicator of future supply.
While the latest figures suggest dwelling completions in Auckland have come off their peak, they are yet to sink to the lows of around 1200 to 1300 a month suggested by the latest building consent figures.
The current number of dwellings being completed suggests there is still a reasonably strong pipeline of residential construction work in Auckland, but the figures also suggest that it could start to decline quite significantly later this year as current projects are completed and fewer new projects get underway.
This story was originally published on Interest.co.nz and has been republished here with permission.
