New house building: April to June 2019

The information is based on the reports of local authority building inspectors and the National House Building Council (NHBC).

Main points

• 1,685 new dwellings were started during April to June 2019, 21% more than during the previous three months but 7% less than a year earlier.
• 5,841 new dwelling were started between July 2018 and June 2019, down 3% on the period July 2017 to June 2018.
• 1,596 new dwellings were completed during April to June 2019, 20% more than the previous 3 months and 2% more than a year earlier.
• Between July 2018 and June 2019, 5,813 new dwelling were completed, down by 6% on the period July 2017 to June 2018.
• 77% of completions during this quarter were in the private sector, 23% were by RSLs and 0.4% were by local authorities.
• Between July 2018 and June 2019, private sector completions were down by 14% compared with the period July 2017 to June 2018; RSL completions were up 50%; local authority completions decreased by 67%.
• 6 new dwellings were completed by local authorities between April and June 2019, these were all social housing for Flintshire County Council.
• 3 bedroom properties accounted for 41% of all new dwellings completed during April to June 2019, unchanged from the same period of 2018.
• The number of 2 bedroom properties increased by 1% on the previous year. 2 bedroom properties accounted for 24% of all completed dwellings (unchanged from the same period of 2018).

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) a private approved inspector. It does not include information from other private approved inspectors. 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.