Almost 1500 new homes were completed in Auckland in May

By Greg Ninness

The supply of new homes being completed in Auckland is continuing at record highs, despite the slowdown in new dwelling consents.

Auckland Council issued 1499 Code Compliance Certificates for new dwellings in May, which was the highest number issued for the month of May since the council began collating the records in 2013.

However the monthly figures can be volatile depending on whether any high density housing projects were completed in a given month. The Council also compiles a rolling 12 month figure. This shows 14,767 new dwellings were completed in the Auckland Region in the 12 months to the end of May this year, a record for any 12 month period since 2013.

Those figures suggest there is still a solid pipeline of residential construction work in place, and the slowdown signalled by the decline in residential building consents may not show up as a decline in the number of new homes being completed until 2024 or even 2025.

That's because building consents are issued before construction work commences, while Code Compliance Certificates are issued when the work is finished and it generally takes around two years or so for a project to be completed.

However, it's likely the building industry in Auckland will already be feeling the effects of the decline in building consent numbers in the region as these suggest that fewer new projects will be getting underway, freeing up resources to complete existing projects.

The high numbers of new homes being completed in Auckland may also be a factor in why rent increases in the region have been relatively constrained, in spite of a significant surge in immigration since the Government re-opened the borders as pandemic restrictions were eased.

This story was originally published on Interest.co.nz and has been republished here with permission.