Number of new homes built in Auckland down 10.5% over the last 12 months
By Greg Ninness
About 1500 fewer new homes are being built in Auckland each year compared to when the market peaked in the middle of last year.
The latest figures from Auckland Council show it issued 12,874 Code Compliance Certificates (CCCs) for new dwellings in the 12 months to July this year, which was 1507 less (-10.5%) than in the 12 months to July last year.
Code Compliance Certificates are issued when a building is completed and are the best measure of new housing supply.
The first graph below shows the trend in the rolling 12 month total since July 2019.
It shows the number of new home completions peaked in the middle of 2021 and has slowly but steadily declined ever since, although the latest figures suggest the decline may have started to flatten out.
That possibility is also supported by the figures from the second graph below, which shows the number of CCCs issued for new dwellings in Auckland per month (the blue line).
The monthly figures can be quite volatile so the second orange line, which shows the monthly average, gives a clearer picture of the trend.
However although the figures clearly show that fewer homes are being completed in Auckland, it does not necessarily mean there is a downturn in the residential building industry.
Auckland Council figures also show that in the first half of 2019, before the Covid pandemic arrived, between 94% and 98% of the new homes being completed in Auckland were receiving their CCCs within two years of obtaining their building consents.
But in the first half of this year that number had dropped to between 78% and 88%.
Clearly, building projects are taking longer to complete and it's likely that the biggest causes of those delays have been pandemic related - things such as lockdowns, supply chain disruptions and a tight labour market.
On an optimistic note, the problems the pandemic caused for the building industry and the supply of new homes should be past their peak.
But given the economic uncertainties currently facing the property market, it remains unclear whether the number of new homes being built will start to bounce back up to its former highs.
This story was originally published on Interest.co.nz and has been republished here with permission.
