KEY POINTS:
The tighter economic climate this year has led, unsurprisingly, to a big drop in house building.
The seasonally adjusted volume of residential building work put in place in the September quarter was the lowest since June 2002, Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) said today.
In the latest quarter the volume fell 7.9 per cent, while in the past year the volume of residential building work fell 22.1 per cent.
The volume of residential building work put in place has been falling since the most recent peak in September 2007, SNZ said.
The seasonally adjusted value of residential building work, in current prices, fell 6.7 per cent in the September quarter.
Falls were recorded in each quarter over the past year, falling 18.7 per cent in that time, SNZ said.
For the year ended September, the unadjusted value of residential building work put in place was $8 billion, down 3.5 per cent from the previous September year.
The seasonally adjusted volume of non-residential building work rose 5.8 per cent in value in the September quarter, following falls in the previous two quarters.
The seasonally adjusted value of non-residential building work, in current prices, rose 7.4 per cent in the September quarter, following falls in the two preceding quarters.
In the latest quarter, a higher-than-usual number of building jobs each had a value of more than $10 million, principally in the commercial buildings category, SNZ said.
For the September year, the value of non-residential building work put in place was $5.2b, up 6.3 per cent from a year earlier, with commercial building up 15.5 per cent.
For all building work put in place, the seasonally adjusted volume fell 2.1 per cent in the September quarter, the third successive fall.
For the year ended September, the unadjusted value of all building work put in place was $13.2b, up 0.1 per cent from the previous September year.
- NZPA
