Same old, same old for the first month of 2026’s property market
Thursday, 5 February 2026
For anyone hoping the calendar flip would shift the housing market, the first month of this year has offered little change, with property values largely flat across the country.
Cotality NZ’s latest Home Value Index showed the national median value sat at $802,617 in January, down 1.0% compared with the same time last year.
Results across the main centres were mixed. Auckland values fell 0.3% in January, while Wellington was down 0.1%. Hamilton and Christchurch were flat, while Tauranga rose 0.3% and Dunedin increased 0.4%.
Cotality NZ’s chief property economist Kelvin Davidson said over the past 12 months, standalone house values had fallen 0.7%, townhouses were down 1.7% and apartments had declined 4.1%. Apartments account for just 4% of the national housing stock.
Read More
What’s better for the bottom line - renting or owning a house?
NZ will have a pretty flat housing market over the long-term - and it’ll be good for us
Davidson said January’s result reflected the subdued conditions that dominated much of 2025.
“January’s muted result for property values at the national level was simply a continuation of the trends we saw throughout most of last year,” he said.
He said lower interest rates were helping borrowers, but there was still plenty of stock available and buyers remained cautious.
“There’s still a good stock of listings out there for buyers to choose from, and a cautious attitude persists, especially as the recovering economy has yet to improve job security and employment levels,” he said.
“The net result is that buyers aren’t in a rush to bid up prices, although vendors aren’t generally having to drop their expectations much either.”
Auckland and Wellington remained among the softer parts of the country, with additional townhouse supply and a large apartment market continuing to weigh on values.
The figures showed the North Shore was the only place in the supercity where values edged up slightly.
He said additional townhouse supply had weighed on values in Manukau, while Auckland City’s large apartment market continued to underperform amid cautious buyers, low migration inflows and concerns about build quality and body corporate insurance costs.
The Wellington region also began the year on a subdued note. Values fell 0.5% in Porirua, 0.3% in Upper Hutt and 0.2% in Lower Hutt while Wellington City itself was flat in January but remained 1.0% lower than a year earlier.
“Alongside Auckland, the wider Wellington area remains one of the key soft patches for NZ’s housing market,” Davidson said, adding that election-year economic uncertainty could see this trend persist through much of 2026.
First home buyers, however, continued to play a significant role in the capital, accounting for a record 37% of purchases in Wellington during 2025.
In regional centres most markets were steady or rising, including Invercargill, Palmerston North and Queenstown.
Hawke’s Bay, however, continued to lag, with values dipping in both Hastings and Napier along with Whanganui.
Invercargill, Gore, Timaru and Ashburton are now the only parts of the country where property values have surpassed their previous peaks.
Davidson said relatively low prices and better affordability were supporting demand in parts of Southland and Canterbury, while strong conditions in much of the farming sector were helping bolster provincial confidence.
Looking ahead, Davidson said sales activity was expected to lift through 2026, supported by lower interest rates and a gradually improving economy, but strong price growth was unlikely.
However, he cautioned against expectations of sharp price growth, noting that housing supply had already risen relative to population growth and building consents were picking up again.
First home buyers were expected to remain an important force in the market, while investors had also returned but remained alert to political risks, including potential changes to tax policy.
“In an election year, it’s going to be fascinating to see how policies relating to the housing market evolve and to assess what they might mean for buyers and sellers.”
Davidson said the latest lift for inflation and talk about earlier OCR increases will no doubt have some households a bit on edge too.