New house building: April 2018 to March 2019

The information is based on the reports of local authority building inspectors and the National House Building Council (NHBC), a private approved inspector. It does not include information from other private approved inspectors.

Main points

• During 2018-19, the number of new dwellings started decreased by 1% compared to the previous year to 5,974 dwellings. This is the lowest annual number recorded since 2013-14.
• The number of new dwellings completed also fell during 2018-19 and was down 13% on the previous year. The 5,777 new dwellings completed during 2018-19 were the lowest number of completions recorded since 2012-13.
• During 2018-19, private sector completions decreased by 18% to 4,489 dwellings but still accounted for over three quarters (78%) of all completions.
•  A total of 1,288 social sector dwellings were completed during 2018-19. Of these, 96% (1,231 dwellings) were completed by RSLs and the remaining 4% (57 dwellings) were completed by local authorities (or their subsidiaries).
• 39% of all new dwellings completed in Wales during 2018-19 were 3 bedroom properties.

Note

The decreases in both starts and completions will be influenced by quarterly fluctuations including the timing of starts and completions on large sites in some authorities and seasonal factors such as holidays and weather. These statistics are not seasonally adjusted.

This data is based on the reports of local authority building inspectors and the National House Building Council (NHBC). It is sometimes difficult for building control officers who record the data to identify the intended final tenure of the property (the basis for the tenure information). This may lead to an under-count of social sector new house building and an over-count for the private sector. Therefore the tenure data should be treated with caution.

We also publish separate statistics on affordable housing provision. The figures cover all additional affordable housing units, whether through new build, purchase, acquisition, leasing or conversion of existing dwellings.