12 Regional Building Consents Monthly building consents continue to trend down in Auckland and are flat across the rest of the country. The trend in Auckland is particularly troubling in light of the need to massively increase house building in Auckland for the next few decades to meet projected population growth. Our own analysis has shown that while Auckland consents increased by almost 10,000 in the past year, the housing stock increased by less than 6,000 dwellings. There are many reasons why the construction industry in Auckland is struggling to build houses fast enough, capacity constraints and high cost to build are among them, and the problem is not easily or quickly solved. New Dwelling Consents Trend Source: Statistics New Zealand