The yearly rate of new home consents issued in New Zealand continued on a downward trajectory in March, with the trend forecast to heighten over the next few months.

Over the year to March, there were 46,924 new homes consented across the country, as per the latest figures from Stats NZ.

This represents a fall of 7.9% on the 50,858 consents issued in the year to March last year and short of the all-time high of 51,015 in the year to May 2022.

There was a smaller number of new homes consented in all regions over the year, with the exception of Tasman, Marlborough, and the West Coast.

The highest number of consents were registered in Auckland, and Canterbury, Stuff.co.nz reports, despite the annual falls of 5.4% and 4.5%, respectively.

In addition, consents for standalone houses declined 23% to 19.668 throughout the year to March. Yet consents for townhouses, apartments, flats and retirement village units rose 6.6% to 27,256 over the same time.

According to Stats NZ construction and property statistics manager Michael Heslop, the fall in consents for standalone houses had been countered by the rise in multi-unit consents during 2022.

“But slower growth in the number of multi-unit homes consented this year has contributed to the overall annual decrease,” he said.

Heslop added that in seasonally adjusted terms, the overall number of new homes consented in March rose 7.0% compared to the month before, following on from a seasonally adjusted decline of 9.4% in February.

Although consent issuance rallied in March, the recent downtrend was still prevalent, said Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod.

He added that a key factor in March’s increase in overall consent numbers was a rise in multi-unit consent figures, followed by a significant drop in recent months. 

“The annual figure is still high compared to history, but it is down 8% from the peak last year, with the drop spread across both standalone houses and multi-unit developments,” he said.