Builders short of forward work

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34128, 14 April 1976, Page 28

Builders short of forward work

The outlook for the building industry is still not very bright; but things are not getting worse, and there are some indications of an improvement by the end of the year.

From a peak in demand in 1974 the industry has become far more competitive with the drop in turnover and a return to tendering rather than contract by negotiation.

The chairman of the Can-i terbury branch of the Institute of Architects (Mr G. Willis) said that, in the main, firms of architects would be reasonably busy for the next three months and about half of them would be reasonably busy for the three months after that.

No firm was as busy as at the corresoonding time last year. This was mainly because there were not so manv forward orders.

Although one Christchurch engineering firm had laid off engineers and an architect’s office had laid off draughtsmen, this was not common in the industry, and was not a trend. At the moment there was no great danger of redundancy, Mr Willis said. The president of the Canterbun’ Master Builders’ Association (Mr W. W. Sullit an) said not many large projects were coming up fori tender, and the commercial) building portion was not par-) ticularlv bright. What ten-) ders were called were fiercely comnetitive. Mr Sullivan predicted that! the outlook would not really improve until late in the \ ear. and said the problem was the lack of forward work. HOUSING FINANCE The outlook for the housing sector of the industry was a little better: some finance was beginning to trickle through. Mr Sullivan said. Money in the hands of

solicitors was “easier.” and’ the Housing Corporation was! processing as many loans asi possible. In general the picture was much the same as a month ago, and although there was no upturn yet, things were not getting worse, said Mr Sullivan.

One of the consequences of! the boom and crash of the! last two years has been the' end of speculative building, j Mr Sullivan said building: speculative houses was very* risky now and this type ofj building was now almost nonexistent. BUILDING PERMITS | An analysis of the building■ permits issued by the Christ-! church City Council in the' last four months shows there has been about the same, the corresponding time last year. Although the value of permits has increased considerably the number issued has been about the same.

In February, for example, the total value of the permits was s4.ltn for a total of; 255 permits. In February, 1975. 278 permits were issued to a total value of $2.5m. In the rest of the country [the situation seems to have 'been much the same, and in ’many cases there has been an [increase in the number of permits issued compared with i early last year.

Building permits issued for ’the whole of New Zealand' lin February had a total value of 585.3 m, compared with| $84.5m in February. 1975. [Building projects of all types! i covered by the permits rose I from 6270 in February, 1975. Ito 7480 in February. 1976. In February of this year 111 permits were issued for new commercial and administrative buildings to a value of 510.9 m, compared with 76 ; permits for $23.5m in Febru'ary, 1975.