Property and sales statistics

This dashboard shows residential property sales statistics across New Zealand. It helps you understand how sales numbers and prices change over time and across different areas. 

The data is based on official valuation information used across government and is updated regularly. You can use it to explore trends, compare locations, and get a clearer picture of what is happening in the housing market. 

Data download 

For easy ad-hoc analysis of measures featured on this dashboard, we have created a data download file linked below. This .xlsx file encompasses comprehensive statistics from all previous months featured in the dashboard. 

Within this sheet, please read the ‘Instructions’ tab on how to filter and use the data appropriately. 

Property and sales statistics data download (XLSX, 13 MB)

Data source 

Data comes from the District Valuation Roll data compiled by local councils as required by the Rating Valuations Act 1998.  Sales prices must be reported by the seller (or their solicitors or authorised agents) to the local council as required by the Local Government Rating Act 2002 (Section 31). 

Sales data is reported post settlement, so we don’t display data for the most recent three months as that data won’t yet be complete. After three months we consider the data to be complete so add it to the dashboard. However, as we are always receiving sales data for earlier periods, so when the dashboard is updated, all period data is recalculated, so will change over time as it becomes more complete. 

The sales date used is the ‘agreement date’, so the date a deal was struck, not the settlement date. 

Making sense of the statistics 

Statistics based on small populations are less reliable because each individual case has a large influence, causing rates and averages to shift sharply even when nothing meaningful has changed. For example, in an area with only 10 house sales, one unusual sale can significantly move the average price. Results from data with small populations should therefore be interpreted with caution and seen as indicative rather than precise. 

Additionally, when sample sizes are small, averages and medians behave differently: 

• Means (averages) are highly sensitive to outliers, so one or two unusual cases can distort results. 
• Medians are more robust because they reflect the middle value rather than the total, making them less affected by anomalies. Despite this, medians can still move around when there are very few observations. 

To improve stability and reduce volatility we recommend: 

• Using longer timeframes to increase the number of observations (sales) and view the long-term trend rather than short-term fluctuations 
• OR using larger geographic areas to also increase population sizes and produce more reliable results 

Reporting such results should be accompanied with the variables that were used to define them. For instance,  # is the median sales price for Wellington over the 3-month period starting on 1 Feb 2025. 

Investigating sales statistics by composition is useful to validate whether sale value statistics have truly changed or whether changes have been caused by compositional variations. 

There are many possible compositional possibilities. The initial compositional variation is ‘value’. 

Disclaimer

The District Valuation Roll data published by Te Tūāpapa Kura Kāinga – Ministry of Housing and Urban Development is sourced from Land Information New Zealand (LINZ). 

Valuation and sales data on the District Valuation Roll is collected and prepared by territorial authorities or their agents for rating and other administrative purposes and are based on assumptions, methodologies, and information available at the valuation date. They do not represent current market values and may not reflect individual property circumstances. 

This information is provided for general information purposes only. It should not be relied upon for financial, investment, valuation, or other decision‑making purposes. 

The Ministry does not warrant the accuracy, completeness, or currency of the data and accepts no responsibility or liability for any use of the information beyond its intended purpose. 

Differences to other sources of sales price data 

Whilst other sources of median sales price data exist, they all have limitations. 

REINZ – REINZ publish median sales prices for NZ, Regions and TAs, but the data is only available in their published PDF reports. REINZ will provide the data as a time series on a commercial basis, otherwise it is not publicly available. 

Interest.co.nz – compile the above REINZ median sales price data into online charts, with the monthly data points available on the chart. However, these cannot be downloaded. 

Barfoot and Thompson – publish monthly average and medians sale prices for Barfoot and Thompson agent sales in Auckland. Whilst Barfoot and Thompson hold the greatest market share in Auckland, and their data gets media coverage; it is still only a subset of all sales in Auckland only. 

Cotality and QV – both publish monthly statistics that include a dollar value statistic. These are not median sales prices, but an average property value for all properties calculated by their House Price Indices. Whilst Cotality refer to this correctly as a ‘median property value’, QV also refers to this as an ‘average price’. Both are regularly mistaken for an actual achieved sales price.