Wairarapa building industry bucks the trend

Wairarapa is defying predictions from financial analysts that the national house-building sector is on the verge of decline and commercial construction is slowing down.

Tim Holmes, managing director of Holmes Construction in Greytown, had seen no sign of a deceleration in the construction industry.

"It's not our experience," he said. "Our order book is full at the moment and we're not worried about the enquiry level."

Holmes Construction does both commercial and residential work and is currently "very busy".

Mr Holmes said the Government was providing a fair amount of work with building on schools and the hospital, and business was steady in both residential and non-residential construction.

David Borman, managing director of residential homes specialist DR Borman Ltd, also described a market glowing with health.

"We have not noticed any decline in the industry," he said. "Most builders, as far as I know, are still very busy. We're booked out this year and we've got jobs pencilled in for next year."

He believed there were probably fewer jobs than before, but they were bigger jobs since houses are getting larger.

Mr Borman said many people wanted to live in Wairarapa because of the region's laid-back pace of life and attractive outdoor lifestyle.

"Land is still being sold in Wairarapa and we have a lot of people moving to Wairarapa and building houses. Wairarapa is getting a better and better reputation as time goes on."

He added that the commercial construction sector was very active and pointed to the new industrial park, the police station and a new supermarket as examples of commercial development within Masterton. Many out-of-town businesses wanted to relocate to Wairarapa, he said.

Masterton construction company Rigg-Zschokke Ltd was busy with commercial work as its holds the contract for building the new Masterton hospital.

"We haven't experienced any impact of the downturn yet and I don't imagine that we're going to," said managing director Ian Hargreaves.

He pointed to a number of pending jobs such as the police station, the Copthorne Hotel upgrade and the upgrade of the Masterton Licensing Trust head office and said it was proof that commercial work was still out there for tender.

Although Rigg-Zschokke are commercial specialists, they also build residential homes and Mr Hargreaves said enquiries about houses were "still bubbling on".

Overall he was optimistic about the future, but sounded a note of caution, saying that the building industry had been through a "long period of volatility" and it was difficult not to wonder how long the good spell would last.

Bank of New Zealand economists are expected to announce a 1.2 per cent dip in home building in the June quarter and a 3.8 per cent rise in non-residential building for the same quarter, with a warning that there were signs the sector "might well be subsiding."

- nzpa