WELLINGTON, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The number of new homes consented reached 37,010 in the year ended November 2019, the highest in a year since the mid-1970s, New Zealand's statistics department Stats NZ said on Tuesday.

"For the first time in 45 years, the annual number of new homes consented rose to over 37,000," construction statistics manager Melissa McKenzie said in a statement.

There were 37,919 new homes consented in the year ended September 1974, while the overall record is still 40,025 in the February 1974 year, statistics showed.

The population of New Zealand in the mid-1970s was around 3 million, compared with about 4.9 million at present.

The number of new homes has been generally increasing since late 2011, coming off lows in 2009 and 2011 when fewer than 14,000 new homes were consented annually, Stats NZ said.

Nationally, 13 percent more new homes were consented in the November 2019 year compared with a year ago, reaching 14,866 in Auckland, the country's largest city, 4,176 in Waikato, and 5,310 in Canterbury, McKenzie said.

Canterbury, which suffered devastated earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, consented 14 percent more new homes than in the previous November year. Although this level is below the 2014 peak, it is still higher than the level before earthquake rebuild activities, she said. Enditem

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