Auckland home-sellers are still making the most money - here's how much

The five things you need to know about the housing market this week.

1. Resellers are still feeling the pain

The Cotality Pain & Gain Report for Q1 2026 was published last week, and it showed that around 88% of property resales made a gross profit. The median gain was $285,000 – measured by the difference between selling price and what the owner originally paid (but ignoring any renovation spending, estate agent fees and the like). Both the percentage of resales making a profit and the amount made are well down from the market peak of around five years ago, when 99% of resellers were in the money, and the median gain was $440,000. In other words, there’s still a bit of pain out there for sellers.

Of course, we should hardly be crying a river; 88% is almost nine in every 10 sellers making some kind of gross profit. In turn, this largely reflects hold periods. For the gainers in Q1, the hold period was 10 years (close to a record high), but for the losses, it was only four years – i.e. short ownership periods are much more likely to see a loss, especially when you consider how weak values have been in the four years since early 2022.

There was also some regional variation: Auckland and Wellington had the weakest resale conditions among the main centres in Q1, with both markets showing elevated rates of loss-making sales and the largest median losses nationally.

Almost one in five Auckland resales recorded a loss in Q1 (19.9%), while Wellington followed at 16.7%. Median losses were also highest in Wellington at $86,120 and Auckland at $77,000.

At the same time, both centres continued to generate some of the country’s largest resale gains for longer-term owners, with median profits of $350,000 in Auckland and $345,000 in Wellington.

Looking ahead, given rising mortgage rates and a weakening economy, it may remain pretty tricky in the near term for anyone buying and selling within a short period of time. Of course, it’s good news for those buyers trying to sniff out a bargain.

2. Concern but no surprise from latest inflation figures

Last week’s Stats NZ selected price indexes data for April contained plenty of worrying trends for diesel, petrol, airfares, and household energy – but of course, none of this is surprising. The Reserve Bank is willing to look through these price rises, provided they don’t filter out into broader inflation pressure. That’s the key risk now and could drive an OCR increase as soon as July or September.

Touching on property rents, they were 0.3% higher in April than the same month last year, perhaps hinting at a floor. But there’s been a lot of volatility in the data lately, so I think the bigger conclusion still holds: rents remain pretty weak.

Cotality chief economist Kelvin Davidson: "It’s good news for those buyers trying to sniff out a bargain." Photo / Peter Meecham

3. Iran conflict seems to be exacerbating already-sluggish sales activity

Meanwhile, we’ve now got April sales volumes (across real estate agents and private deals) and the same sluggish story is in place – volumes for the month were 9% lower than April last year, and were the fourth monthly decline in a row. The drops aren’t massive, but volumes were already falling before the Iran conflict anyway – and now with mortgage rates up and the economy cooling, that sluggish trend has just been embedded. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see further weakness ahead.

4. Net migration is still rising for now

On the back of reduced NZ resident departures and growth in new non-citizen arrivals, the net migration balance continues to trend slowly higher, with the 12-month running total reaching around 24,250 in March – up from the trough of less than 11,000 in August 2025 and also the highest figure since November 2024. That will be helping bolster economic activity to some extent, but the Iran conflict means there’s uncertainty about whether net migration will continue to rise in the coming months (although NZ may well be viewed as a ‘safe haven’).

5. An insight into the consumer economy

Just quickly to finish, we’re heavy on consumer-related data to be released this week, including the April performance of the services index (Monday), April electronic card sales figures (Tuesday), and the benchmark Q1 retail sales stats (Friday). The latter will predate Iran and should still be pretty decent, but the PSI and e-card spending figures may have taken a hit as consumers hunker down.

- Kelvin Davidson is chief economist at property insights firm Cotality