Residential building plans passed remain low when compared to pre-Covid-19 levels, with those passed for the three months to April 2023 being -22.6% below the three months to April 2019 and -28.7% below the three months to March 2018, according to FNB Commercial Property Finance.
When viewing April 2023 alone, residential building plans passed showed a year-on-year decline (-15.09%) following March 2023’s small increase of +2.51%.
For the three months to April 2023, the year-on-year rate of decline was -3.09% following a year-on-year decline of -24.63% for the three months to March 2023.
Residential building completions were also in a sharp decline during April (-43.19%) year-on-year, and by -27.67% for the three months to April 2023, year-on-year.
The ‘flats and townhouses’ category showed the best growth rate in terms of the number of units passed of +14.1% year-on-year but when combining in ‘flats and townhouses’ and ‘freestanding homes larger than 80 square metres’, growth in building plans passed returned to a negative territory of -10.94% year-on-year. However, these two segments recorded a positive growth rate of 0.44% for the three months to April year-on-year.
‘Dwelling houses smaller than 80 square metres’ recorded a year-on-year decline of -14.9% with ‘dwelling houses larger than 80 square metres’ showing a sharp decline of -16.7% year-on-year.
