Building work is going from strength to strength, new report says

Construction work ramped up early in 2019 and is set to continue strongly in Auckland, Wellington and Waikato, according to a new report by Rider Levett Bucknall.

Quantity surveyors Rider Levett Bucknall's Forecast 92 report said consents for non-residential buildings were rising towards highs last seen in the previous building boom in 2008.

The biggest category was consents for social, cultural and religious buildings followed by storage buildings and hotels.

Consents for new offices and farm and industrial buildings had fallen. While storage buildings were in demand uncertainty over the global growth outlook would likely curtail demand for these and other industrial buildings in the coming year.

RLB expected more demand in the future for accommodation buildings to house high numbers of international and domestic tourists.

The positive picture for construction work in the RLB report is consistent with a Government report, the National Construction Pipeline Report 2019 which forecast a rise in building activity to a peak of $43 billion in 2021.

RLB said construction cost inflation in Christchurch, Auckland and Wellington had eased, but it was rising in the smaller regions as building work picked up there.

The rising cost of building is tipped to moderate to under 4 per cent a year in 2019 and to reach about 3 per cent in four years.

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