Report on New Zealand's housing survey for The Urban Advisory

Author:

Barry Milne, Martin von Randow

Source:

University of Auckland Compass Research Centre

Publication date:

2025

Topics:

Housing

Introduction

This report describes interim results on the NZ Housing Survey (https://www.nzhousingsurvey.co.nz), based on results for the n = 2,587 respondents who had responded by 12 Feb 2025 (note that fewer respondents completed the survey, respondents could and did drop out of the survey at any point).

The results presented in this report focus on perceptions of the respondent’s current home, housing situation, and finances, and the situations they may consider or may experience in the future.

Specifically, the report focuses on the following survey topics:

• Main reason for choosing current home;
• Time to find rental;
• Financial strains;
• Home / housing situation perceptions;
• Types of places the respondent would consider living;
• Important features in choosing where to live;
• Needs regarding the number of bedrooms in a home;
• Reasons for moving from the current house, and when a move is likely to happen;
• Reasons for not owning the next home;
• Perceptions of housing choices;
• Support for housing models.

The report highlights where perceptions may differ by socio-demographics factors:

• Gender;
• Age;
• Ethnicity;
• Region;
• Income;
• Labour force status;
• Disability;
• Current housing situation;
• Life-stage.

Distributions of the socio-demographic factors are presented first, followed by a summary of the main findings in relation to each survey topic.

A full set of results is presented in the Technical Appendix.

University of Auckland Compass Research Centre, September 2025