Fewer building permits granted in Q2

A total of 10.9 million cubic metres building permits were granted in the second quarter of 2020, which is 31.2 percent less than one year ago, according to Statistics Finland.

The cubic volume granted for residential building construction went down by 22.2 per cent and the cubic volume granted for other than residential building construction by 34.7 per cent.

Due to circumstances related to the coronavirus situation and the start of the summer holiday season, the municipality-specific delay in building permit notifications has been somewhat longer than usual.

In April to June, fewer building permits were granted for residential building than one year ago, in total 3.3 million cubic metres. One year earlier, the respective figure was 4.3 million cubic metres.

The cubic volume granted for blocks of flats diminished by 22.1 per cent and that for detached houses by 19.0 per cent from one year ago.

In the second quarter, building permits were granted in total for 10,657 dwellings, the number fell by 22.1 percent from the previous year.

At the same time, construction of a total of 11,732 dwellings was started, down by 1.8 percent from the corresponding period of the year before.

In April to June, the constant-price value or the volume of ongoing building production remained almost on level with the previous year, up by 0.1 percent year-on-year.

The volume of construction of residential buildings declined by 3.3 per cent, while that of other than residential building construction increased by 2.7 per cent in the period.

Measured by volume, 5.3 per cent fewer building projects than one year earlier were started in the same period. The number of residential building starts was 0.9 per cent lower than one year ago.