Building consents excluding apartment figures climbed 22% to 1,092 worth $334 million in April from the same month a year earlier, according to Statistics New Zealand. They were down from 1,394 consents worth $415 million in March.

Statistic's NZ April's national building consent figures showed that apartments accounted for a third of the increase in the number of new housing consents, which rose in April 2012, compared with April 2011. Auckland reported the biggest rate of new issuance, with 360 new dwellings, of which 62 were apartments, compared to 259 a year earlier.

“There has been a big increase in the number of consents for apartments this April compared with the same month last year,” industry and labour statistics manager Blair Cardno said. “The trend for the number of new houses, including apartments, has been steadily rising over the last year.”

Although down on March figures, the trends for the number of new houses, both including and excluding apartments, have both been rising over the last year.

Unadjusted housing consent numbers for April 2012, compared with April 2011, were:

• 1,230 new houses, including apartments, up 33%
• 1,092 new houses, excluding apartments, up 22%
• 138 new apartments (88 of which were retirement village units), up from 34 apartments.

Eleven of New Zealand's 16 regions had increases, with Auckland and Canterbury being the two leading contributors.

In Canterbury, earthquake-related building consents totalled $28 million in April 2012. Of this, $18 million was for non-residential buildings and $9 million was for residential buildings, including 17 new houses. That brings the total since the first quake on September 4 2010, to over 1,700 consents worth $381 million have been identified by the government department.

On an annual basis, new residential consents, including apartments, rose 5.4% to 14,899 worth $4.14 billion, while the value of commercial construction increased 1.4 per cent to $3.7 billion. "The underlying trend in dwelling consent issuance remains one of a recovery, albeit at a gradual pace," ASB economist Christina Leung said yesterday. What do you think?

Thanks to Infometrics, we have a review of the building industry for March, which includes consent figures for you to compare.