March quarter sees building activity on rise

The volume of building activity in New Zealand rose 3.2 percent in the March 2022 quarter, compared with the December 2021 quarter, Stats NZ said today.

Residential building activity rose 3.5 percent in the March 2022 quarter, while non-residential building activity rose 2.7 percent.

"Residential building activity has risen over the past two years, except in quarters impacted by alert level 4 lockdowns. This reflects the large number of consented new homes in the construction pipeline," construction statistics manager Michael Heslop said.

These volume estimates remove the effects of price changes and typical seasonal patterns. Between the December 2021 and March 2022 quarters, residential building costs rose by 3.3 percent, and non-residential building costs by 2.8 percent .

See also Stats NZ releases experimental indicators about building timeframes which was published earlier this week.

Non-residential increases driven by factories, education, and health

The value of non-residential building activity was 11 percent higher in the year ended March 2022 than in the year ended March 2021, partly reflecting an increase of 10 percent in non-residential building costs over the same period.

The building types with the largest increases in value were:

• factories and industrial buildings, up 48 percent to $1.3 billion
• education buildings, up 23 percent to $1.6 billion
• hospitals, nursing homes, and health buildings, up 29 percent to $884 million.