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New Zealand new home approvals see rise in June

Xinhua, July 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

New home approvals in June were up 2 percent year on year, the New Zealand government statistics agency said on Thursday, as the government claimed that it was tackling the country's housing crisis.

Last month, 2,042 new dwellings were consented nationally, but the number was down 4.1 percent from May, according to a statement from Statistics New Zealand.

The biggest rise was in Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city and home to a quarter of the population, where house prices have been rising so sharply that the central bank has warned they are a risk to the country's financial stability.

Home consents were up 18 percent year on year in June to 704, while the earthquake-battered Canterbury region saw consents down 13 percent to 544 as the rebuild of Christchurch city tapers off.

The total value of consents for all homes in June was 832 million NZ dollars (552.11 million U.S. dollars).

Building and Housing Minister Nick Smith said home building in Auckland was at its strongest in a decade with 8,300 consents in the year ending June, an increase of 21 percent on the previous year.

"This is the fourth consecutive year of over 20 percent growth and is the strongest sustained increase in Auckland house building ever," Smith said in a statement.

The figures reinforced the findings of a government report out Wednesday that Smith said pointed to a "massive building boom" over the next six years.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) again warned Wednesday that soaring house prices in Auckland posed a risk to the country' s financial stability.

RBNZ governor Graeme Wheeler repeated concerns that lowering the official cash rate could fuel house price inflation in Auckland.

While the government has attributed the crisis to a lack of supply, the RBNZ has targeted investors with a series of loan-to- value mortgage curbs. Endi