WELLINGTON, March 2 (Xinhua) -- Building consents for new homes in New Zealand were relatively flat in January 2018, following recent volatility, the country's statistics department Stats NZ said on Friday.

Building consents for new homes rose a modest 0.2 percent from December 2017, after rising 9.4 percent in November and then falling 9.5 percent in December, Stats NZ said.

"Stand-alone houses drove the small growth in new home consents in January," construction statistics manager Melissa McKenzie said in a statement.

Home consents have been volatile in recent months but overall, consent numbers are fairly flat, and levels remain below both recent and historic peaks, McKenzie said.

In actual terms, 1,916 new homes were consented in January 2018. January is typically a quiet month for consents, however this January was up on the previous few. January home consents were below the most recent peak of 3,262 in November 2017, and less than half the October 1973 number, when 4,081 new homes were consented, she said.

Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, consented 718 new homes in the month of January, compared with an average of 900 a month over the past year. In the year ended January 2018, Auckland consented 11,073 new homes, statistics show.

Overall, there were 31,251 homes consented in New Zealand in the year ended January 2018, up 3.7 percent from the previous January year, with the growth driven by more consents for apartments, Stats NZ said.