Our take on the latest Residential building consents (Mon 1 Sept 2025)
Dwelling consents
33,879
Over the year to July 2025
Consent numbers down 3.0% from July 2024
Annual retirement units consented lowest since June 2014
The key numbers...
- There were 3,252 new dwelling consents issued in July, down 3.0% from a year ago. The comparison month, July 2024, was unusually strong due to a record 451 consents issued in Otago, so a slight decline compared to a year ago was expected.
- Attached dwelling consents totalled 1,740 in July, the second-strongest month since October 2023.
- The strong result for attached dwelling consents was driven by townhouse consents, with 1,433 consents issued in July. The annual total rose for the second consecutive month to 14,441 consents, seemingly putting a floor under the trough at just over 14,000 in the year to May. The annual total of townhouse consents was 3.4% lower than a year ago, the smallest decline since May 2023.
- There were 135 retirement units consented in July, bringing the annual total of consents for this build type to 1,483, its lowest since June 2014.
- There were 192 apartment units consented in July, spread between Canterbury (76), Auckland (61), and Otago (46). The annual total (2,270 units) was up 26% from a year ago, and at its highest since February 2024.
- Standalone house consents rose 2.4% from June (seasonally adjusted). The annual number of house consents (15,685pa) edged down from June but has held in a tight range of 15,600-16,000 for the past 12 months.
Mixed trends across attached dwelling types
Annual average % change
...and our reaction
- Trends are mixed across attached dwelling consents, with townhouse and apartment consents having seemingly reached their troughs in the annual consent totals for each build type. In contrast, annual retirement unit consents hit an 11-year low in July, indicating that the subdued nature of the housing market is continuing to restrict developments in the retirement sector.
- The annual consent total (33,897) continues to track just below the 34,000pa mark, solidified by steady standalone consents, and townhouse and apartment consents turning from recent troughs.
- The annual consent total in Auckland (14,347) pushed up for the third consecutive month to its highest since May 2024, despite the region’s recent economic struggles, which have seen Auckland’s unemployment rate hit 6.1% in June. The annual consent total in Wellington (1,962) also rose and is now at its highest since August 2024.
- Along with a 25bp cut to the official cash rate (OCR), the Reserve Bank signalled further easing to come in its Monetary Policy Statement last month. We expect two further cuts to the OCR, in both October and November, taking the OCR to a low of 2.5%. These additional cuts to the OCR mean there will be more easing of mortgage rates than previously anticipated, so more potential buyers might be enticed into the market, which would help to work through some of the surplus of properties available for sale. Reducing the number of existing homes available for sale should help provide some boost to residential consent total over the coming year.
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37,813 Annual consents over March 2026 year
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