简体中文
Approvals for the construction of new homes hit a five-year high last month, the government statistics agency announced Thursday, the same day the head of the country's central bank warned the housing market was overheating.
April saw 1,755 new homes consented, the highest number since April 2008, when 2,373 were approved, according to Statistics New Zealand.
"April was a bumper month for building consents for new houses across the country," industry and labor statistics manager Blair Cardno said in a statement.
The number of new home consents was up 43 percent from April last year, extending an upward trend to 25 straight months from an historic low in March 2011.
Reserve Bank of New Zealand governor Graeme Wheeler said in a published speech earlier Thursday that the country's overheating housing market was posing a risk to financial stability.
House price rises were being driven by a combination of supply shortages, pent up demand, and the lowest mortgage rates since the mid-1960s, he said.
"Despite being over-valued, house prices could continue rising for some time," he warned.
He called for more land to be opened up for construction and hinted at the need for a capital gains tax, saying demand could be "moderated by changing the tax treatment of housing to reduce its attractiveness as an investment relative to other assets."
Adding to the challenge was the decline in capacity in the construction industry in the last five years, he said, citing figures showing the country had 5,000 fewer firms and 14,000 fewer employees in the construction sector in February last year than there were in February 2008.
