"February will tell a better story - if it is just a bit of a hiccup or a continuing trend. I can't think of any reason why this January would be different from any other year."
Owner of Palmer Builders in Hastings, Seth Palmer, said building and construction in Hawke's Bay had been slow despite the summer months.
"It's kind of funny because the rest of the country seems to be supposedly booming but we are still struggling. There is starting to be a bit more work in the pipeline but generally things are still pretty slow," he said. "We definitely don't appear to be coming into a boom or anything."
Mr Palmer said the January period had been unusually quiet.
"January is normally really busy because of the summer months. It can be a little bit quiet because of the holidays and things like that but pretty much, the months of summer are normally the busiest time of the year.
"Things normally only die down during winter."
More business was anticipated as the year progressed.
"It is generally pretty quiet all round down here but things might start picking up. There is a lot more talk of more jobs out there and some of the guys are saying they have forward work.
"A lot of the time most builders just have the job they are doing but nothing to really do after that," he said.
Nationally, the number of new building consents issued dropped by 3.8 per cent in January 2015, compared with December 2014.
A total of 1703 new dwellings were consented in January 2015, including 314 apartments.
The regions which consented the most new dwellings were Auckland with 482, Canterbury with 467, and the Waikato with 180.
Nearly $1 billion of building work was consented in January - $645 million of residential work and $351 million of non-residential work.
For the whole of 2014 ending in January 2015, $14.7 billion of building work was consented - up 19 per cent on the year ended January 2014.
This comprised $9.5 billion of residential work and $5.2 billion of non-residential work.
