We look back on a big, successful year and reveal our most popular stories; announce expanded coverage for 2016

2015 has been a [very] big year for us.

We delivered about 4,000 original stories from our team of journalists and contributors.

We were visited by almost 1.7 million "unique readers" who dialed up more than 5.7 million sessions reading more than 13.9 million pages of content.

Actually our 'unique reader' data is by IP address so it probably double counts readers who access our content using multiple devices.

But it is still a good proportion of New Zealand's online adult population and the amount of content read is a remarkable +24% increase over 2014. (And 2014 was a +25% rise over 2013.)

While most readers will be aware that our Property section is our most popular, followed by the closely-related Borrowing section, they will probably be surprised to learn that our next most popular is our Rural section where we saw traffic jump by +37% in 2015 from 2014.

We appreciate your support of our live-and-free service, and we wish everyone Happy Holidays and good weather where ever you are.

Although most of our staff are taking a break as well, we will have daily updates and some unique content in our regular style.

International financial markets may get 'interesting' in January and we will be covering that and what it means for New Zealand.

And we will be back in 2016 with our full team, new coverage, and expanded data (along with a really useful update to our KiwiSaver resources).

In the meantime, here are the fifteen stories that readers read the most in 2015:

#15. Bernard Hickey's August fix-or-float review
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/77043/bernard-hickey-looks-whether-fix-or-float-and-how-long-fix-when-reserve-bank-cutting

#14. A September story from our Property Line Report on investor wariness of Auckland's house prices
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/77754/many-investors-believe-auckland-house-prices-have-peaked-and-are-selling-cash-their

#13. The July news of another sharp fall in dairy prices
https://www.interest.co.nz/rural-news/76551/global-dairy-prices-sink-107-farmers-operating-below-breakeven-no-end-sight-anz

#12. A September warning by the RBNZ of the dangers of steep Auckland house price rises
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/77548/rbnzs-wheeler-says-auckland-house-price-inflation-over-25-dangerous-territory-when

#11. July news of a low BNZ home loan rate
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/76743/its-drive-grow-its-home-loan-business-bnz-now-offers-two-very-low-rates-leading-market

#10. Olly Newland's March view that many investors are 'making mistakes
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/74363/olly-newland-says-property-investors-are-making-same-mistakes-they-did-2008-downturn-

#9. The RBNZ's November warning of the potential for a sharp price correction in Auckland house prices
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/78583/rbnz-warns-growing-risk-sharp-correction-auckland-house-prices-says-now-watching-hamilton

#8. David Hargreave's call in May for more hard facts on who is buying in Auckland
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/75543/one-thing-missing-all-debate-about-auckland-housing-has-been-cold-hard-facts-about

#7. The March auction results from Harcourts
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/74552/harcourts-auction-results-throughout-new-zealand-check-out-latest-selling-prices

#6. The May announcement of new LVR limits for property investors
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/75453/rbnz-announces-lvr-restrictions-auckland-rental-property-investors-they-must-have

#5. The May announcement of the crackdown on property traders who sell within two years
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/75520/key-announces-budget-2015-changes-crack-down-property-traders-selling-within-two

#4. Elizabeth Kerr's March experiments with peer-to-peer lending platforms
https://www.interest.co.nz/personal-finance/74297/elizabeth-kerr-openly-experiments-peer-peer-lending-using-harmoney

#3. David Hargeave's November review of First NZ's warning of a sharp housing correction
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/78791/nz-first-analysts-see-increased-risk-sharp-correction-suggest-prices-may-fall-about

#2. Gareth Vaughan's January interview with Brian Gaynor
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/73663/brian-gaynor-says-hes-not-quite-positive-he-was-year-ago-warns-damage-house-price-correct

#1. The June version of Bernard's fix-or-float story which was read by 11,564 people
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/76054/bernard-hickey-looks-whether-fix-or-float-and-how-long-fix-when-reserve-bank-cutting

Interestingly, our #1 story for 2015 was only our 49th most popular page. It was well below the 773,000 people who used our mortgage rate page over the year (and the total views were much more than that of course because readers kept coming back for updates).