Building consents for new apartments jumped 11% in November, Statistics New Zealand says.
Official figures show 492 apartment consents were issued, the highest number in a single month since April 2008, and 1775 consents were issued for houses.
Excluding apartment consents, which can be volatile from month to month, the figure for consents fell 0.5%.
ASB economist Christina Leung says it's particularly encouraging to see a rebound in dwelling consents in Auckland which accounted for more than a third of all consents in November.
The value of all building work totalled more than $1 billion.
Of that, $40 million was for earthquake-related in Canterbury and included 64 new homes.
