Building consents rise 12 per cent in Christchurch, house listings still low

Building consents have been issued for nearly 2800 new dwellings in Christchurch over the past year. Photo / 123RF

Christchurch is seeing a rapid rise in new house builds.

Building consents have been issued for nearly 2800 new dwellings over the past year - up 12 per cent on the previous year.

OneRoof commentator Ashley Church said the strong uptake was fuelled by a perfect storm of three key factors.

"It's the pressure on the property market, changes the Government made on the ability to deduct interest for property investors on new dwellings and a sense of confidence in the market."

He said home builders know the market will still be going strong when construction is completed.

However, residential property listings continue to remain low in Christchurch.

The total number of properties for sale in the city is 879. That compares to 710 in Wellington and 7129 in Auckland.

Church said the low listings were an ongoing issue.

He said the situation had improved in the past month but it had reached a point where every house on the real estate books had been selling.

"Listings were so low that pretty much any old thing was selling. People's fear of missing out really started to kick in.

"I think that pressure has eased off now a little bit."