New house building: October to December 2019

The information is based on the reports of local authority building inspectors and the National House Building Council (NHBC). Tenure data should be treated with caution (see notes).

New dwellings started

• 1,326 new dwellings were started during October to December 2019, 23% less than during the previous three months and a similar figure to the same quarter of 2018.
• 6,129 new dwellings were started between January 2019 and December 2019, up 2% on the period January 2018 to December 2018.

New dwellings completed

• 1,759 new dwellings were completed during October to December 2019, 26% more than the previous 3 months and 10% more than the same quarter of 2018.
• Between January 2019 and December 2019, 6,071 new dwellings were completed, up by 4% on the period January 2018 to December 2018.
• The number of completed 3 bedroom properties increased by 22% compared to the same quarter of 2018 and accounted for 42% of all completed dwellings.
• The number of completed 2 bedroom properties was up by 13% on the same quarter of 2018 and accounted for 22% of all completed dwellings.

New dwellings completed by tenure

This split should be treated with caution as they are believed to include an undercount of social sector and local authority new builds, but an overcount of private sector and RSL (see notes).

• 79% of completions during this quarter were reported to be in the private sector, 21% were by RSLs.
• Between January 2019 and December 2019, private sector completions were similar to the period of January 2018 to December 2018 whilst RSL completions were up 29%.

Note

This data 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. It is sometimes difficult for building control officers and NHBC 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. Within the social sector it may also lead to an under-count of local authority new house building and an over count for the RSL sector. Therefore the tenure data should be treated with caution.

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.

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.