WELLINGTON, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand saw 2,850 new homes consented last month, down 6.9 percent compared with October 2023, according to the statistics department Stats NZ on Monday.
A total of 1,487 multi-unit homes, including townhouses, apartments, retirement village units, and flats, were consented in October 2024, down 18 percent compared with October 2023, Stats NZ said.
There were 1,363 stand-alone houses consented, up 8.6 percent compared with October 2023, it said, adding the number of stand-alone houses consented each month has been higher than the same month of the previous year since July 2024.
Annually, there were 33,467 new homes consented in the year ended October 2024, down 16 percent compared with the year ended October 2023, said Stats NZ economic indicators spokesperson Michael Heslop.
Of the new homes consented, 15,883 were stand-alone houses, down 2.8 percent compared with the year ended October 2023, and 17,584 were multi-unit homes, down 25 percent over the same period, Heslop said, adding multi-unit homes have been consented in higher numbers than stand-alone houses since early 2022 on an annual basis, but the gap between the two is narrowing. ■