The proportion of New Zealand households who own their home has increased slightly since the last census in 2018, reversing a downward trend seen in the past three decades.
Two-thirds of households (66%) reported owning their own home in the 2023 census, according to data released by Statistics NZ on Thursday, up from 64.5% in 2018.
While this increase was small, it was the first increase since home ownership peaked at 73.8% in the early 1990s more than three decades ago.
Auckland households had the lowest regional rate of home ownership, at 59.5% at up only 0.1 point from 2018, while districts surrounding Christchurch had the highest rates.
Waimakariri was at 82.2% up from 80.5% and Selwyn district was at 80.5% up from 79.5% in 2018. Carterton district, just north of Wellington, came in third at 80.1%.
Wellington and Hamilton cities had the lowest home ownership rates at 58.6% and 53.5%, respectively.
Stats NZ principal analyst Rosemary Goodyear said home ownership was influenced by a range of factors but was particularly sensitive to affordability.
“We know that house prices tend to be highest in city centres, especially in Auckland and Wellington, whereas homes further out may be more affordable,” she said.
“We also know that rates of home ownership are higher among older people, so we see a pattern where areas with older populations have higher home ownership rates.”
Housing affordability has worsened since 2018. Infometrics data showed the house value to income ratio was 6.7 at the time of the previous census, compared to 7.3 in 2023.
Brad Olsen, chief executive of Infometrics, said there was a period of better affordability and lower interest rates between 2019 and 2021 which was likely when much progress on ownership occurred.
It was “remarkable and encouraging” that ownership went up a touch but it may not be an enduring trend since affordability had deteriorated in recent years, he said.
The data also helped confirm anecdotal evidence that urban dwellers have been increasingly shifting outside of big city boundaries to buy a home.
Other data
Stats NZ also reported a reduction in the number of damp homes. Only 18% of private dwellings experienced dampness during 2023, down from 21.5% in 2018.
There was also a substantial increase in the number of homes with heat pumps installed, at 66.8% in 2023 up from 47.3% five years prior.
Stats NZ said this was likely the result of law changes made by the Labour Government in 2020, known as Healthy Homes, which set stricter standards for insulation and heating in residential rental properties.
Less than a third of households now have a landline telephone, down from 62.5% in 2018, although nine out of 10 have access to the internet.
72 Comments
That’s why they said “maybe” - they were making their own assessment based on other information. I would agree with them - the ability to WFH would absolutely entice me to move out of the major cities and would therefore be more affordable. Not everyone is in the same situation as you.
i don't know how you conclude it was because of WFH?
WFH was definitely a factor. It allowed people to buy much further out. A whole bunch of colleagues were able to work from their provincial towns, organise online meetings and only have to be in person for a 1 or 2 days a week. That would have been impossible with things like childcare and commute times if they had been forced to work in the office 9-5.
Christchurch got a bump from young people who could buy the lower cost homes that followed the earthquake rebuild. It's a big enough centre that employers were happy for them to be based there even if the bulk of the team was in Wellington or Auckland.
The government mandate that they return to the office will not work for this reason.
Plenty of charts show this better, but the 5 seconds it took to find this one was enough effort to prove:
https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/gross-domestic-product-gdp/
June 2020 -10% quarterly growth.
RBNZ in response to a dramatic and immediately failing economy, but they went too hard and NZers got too hard for the credit flow.
The staying at home wasn't the matter at hand, it was the QE fiscal response that they recommended. What would one of the worlds largest investment firms stand to gain form recommending large scale global stimulus which would increase asset prices and concentrate wealth very quickly to those that already had it, or owned assets...
Here's the breakdown of FHB vs Investor borrowers yearly from RBNZ C31. Series starts in August 2014 and current to August 2024.
- 2014 - 8k (19k annualized) vs 23k (55k annualized)
- 2015 - 22k vs 65k
- 2016 - 23k vs 63k
- 2017 - 21k vs 41k
- 2018 - 26k vs 41k
- 2019 - 28k vs 36k
- 2020 - 30k vs 42k
- 2021 - 32k vs 38k
- 2022 - 22k vs 22k
- 2023 - 26k vs 21k
- 2024 - 18k (27k annualized) vs 16k (24k annualized)
I suspect many are paper rich and cash poor. It's easy to waddle on down to the bank, leverage a down payment out of thin air and borrow the rest.
When we traded up, our mortgage broker was very keen to tell us how much equity we had (I already knew). We could keep our old place as a rental and leverage into our next property. Had we done that, we'd be stumping an extra $1k per month (@ 4.95% interest rate) and seen our equity plummet in 2 properties.
Your equity would only go down if you were forced to sell. We bought before the peak in 2021 and on paper our property has lost between 0-2.5% depending on the day of the week.
The main question is, would your rental cover the extra $1k per month and then some to make it worthwhile.
Does anyone know the definitions of home ownership rates they are using? For example, does an owner living with 3 lodgers count as an owned house for all of them? For a house with two OO living next to a rented house with 4 people living in it, is that 50% of households owning their own home? (but would be 33% of people). Thanks
A good trend reversal. May it continue ...
Alas ... No. It won't.
Our government has restored major tax advantages for the rich to get richer by becoming residential property 'investors' by buying existing stuff.
When will our government provide tax advantages for people becoming real investors that actually create new things?
This is not North Korea or Cuba, people are free to do with their money what they wish
First bit true, second bit nonsense. There are very strict rules on what you can do with your money. Those rules have an effect on outcomes for the country. The coalition reversed some really good rules that has led to more people being able to own their own home. If you take your Labour bad blinkers off you will see that Labour's housing policy, while not perfect moved in the right direction, the coalition have reversed that positive progress.
And Luxon coincidentally sells two off his properties almost immediately after he changed the rules to his benefit. Curious.
Luxon might have another project in mind that he wants the money for, so you're suggesting that property is a bad bet.
That's a risk I'm prepared to take, you're suggesting property might go down the gurgler.
I beg to disagree for many reasons, which I won't expound on here, but suffice to say that the recent plunge in interest rates should get the property market underway again in the next few months.
There is none. If you invest you speculate you will get more money back in the future.
No investment is 100% risk free, not even govt bonds. Although they are touted near risk free, you run the risk that inflation erodes the value of your money more than the return you receive.
Do you have your eyes closed? There's hundreds of kiwi companies out there innovating, many of them crying out for capital to do so.
I own shares in a couple of innovative Christchurch companies, both of whom have had to look overseas for capital because we are so focused on housing above all else.
Good luck with that.
I like to dabble in property with my money. If anything goes wrong it's my fault, not some big-noting hustler.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/major-company-collapses…
There's any number of examples where gullible, trusting people have had their life's savings pillaged by grifters and fraudsters.
And I'm not going to be amongst them. I dabbled on the Aussie stock market for decades in mostly well capitalised companies, but handing my money over to a startup won't be happening.
https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/350423200/liquidation-more-and-more-…
This is mitigated by due diligence and, above all, appropriate stakes. Anyone who puts their life savings into a single company is asking for trouble. Risky start-ups get a 1-2% weighting at best.
But you do you - if you don't have the risk tolerance for volatile shares, then stick with boring old property. But in this case, please stop posting on forums about where all the productive investments are - you know perfectly well where they are, you just don't want to be involved with them.
You hand over your money, I won't be.
I know all about volatile shares, Ive had a few. For example, gullible punters lose their money on mining shares all the time. Check out a listed company on the ASX called Sayona Mining.
Some have lost their life's savings on this dog. Was $1.57, now 3c.
Lots of hui, no doey.
Here's a few suggestions...Du Val....Auckland Vehicles Ltd....Digital Nomad Ltd.....Godfreys Ltd....NZ Wagyu....et. al.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/queens-service-medal-holder-davinder-raha…
The story of A2 is quite illustrative. The discovery of the A1/A2 distinction was made by Fonterra who failed to innovate around this - could have been a genuine point of difference for the whole country, followed by exhaustive research into the apparent links between A1 milk and a whole host of diseases from autism to dementia. We could have changed lives and had a genetic advantage in our herds for years.
A2 Milk ended up carrying the milk can and built up a decent fresh milk business selling A2 - in Australia. Then when they hit the infant formula jackpot, the company started shifting over to the ASX. They are driven from Australia now - I doubt they'll maintain the NZX listing for much longer.
I'm not smart?
I've made millions out of property, and I'm building another house right now. It's interesting, fun, and the finished product is always something I can be proud of. Giving my moolah to a sharpy with some 'good idea'....yeah right!!!
Still waiting to hear about those great startups I can pour my hard-earned into.
I build quality houses, not speculative crap.
When I stand back and look at the finished product I get a lot of satisfaction out of it. All the houses I've built have been great to live in, easy, profitable sellers. Where I live now, my current house is an absolute standout, cars stop outside and look at it, the locals even have a nickname for it.
It's not worth a fortune, but a real eye-catcher.
You can hand your dough over to someone else to play with.
Xero, Black Pearl and Gentrack just for a start. Others have been sold and made the founders and investors very rich indeed. Rich is a word you use a lot in your very shallow vocabulary. If you are so ‘rich’ why did your daughter have to buy so far out of central Brisbane.I would have helped her to buy closer and better. Win win all around.
She doesn't live in Brisbane. She lives in Melbourne.
I gave her $250k to help her buy a house outside of Melbourne, because when both partners work $300k isn't enough to buy a house near the city in Australia, something I don't think many kiwis are aware of when they move to the big smoke in Aussie. The banks won't lend if you're self-employed.
There's nothing like owning quality property, (some) shares are OK, but I don't trust others with my money. Yuppies living high on the hog while I pay for it? No!
Here's my own personal example. 10 years ago I needed cash the bank wouldn't give me to grow my start up. A mate lent me 100k. Last year I bought his shareholding out for 900k. This same friend has invested in many other businesses. Not all have been winners, but he is well ahead of the curve ! Oversight on his part is based on the perceived risk.
Like all opportunity, they won't come knocking on your door.
You are so desperate to prove how rich you are. Why bother if you are comfortable with where you are at in life. At your great age you should be thinking about better things than how rich you are. If you do in fact have some wealth you should give some to your kids as you cannot take it with you.
He's always on here whining about how I don't help my kids out. I told him I have, and he's still here bitching.
Apparently I should be 'investing' in shonky startups to help the country out...no thank you.
Renovating and building houses is lots of fun...if you've got the stomach for it.
When will our government provide tax advantages for people becoming real investors that actually create new things?
When Labour gets back in.
That was exactly what their policy did. Tax breaks for new builds but the opposition and gullible media wouldn't make that distinction.
I think this government has no true interest in people owning their own homes. Much more profitable to create a permanent underclass of renters to provide a much needed ‘service’ to, with generous subsidies such as accom supplement of course. It beggars belief that some segments of society try to say they’re providing a much needed service, which their very activity is creating an artificially high demand for (I would hazard a lot of people are renting by necessity rather than choice these days).
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