TUA releases the second New Zealand Housing Survey Report

The second report from The New Zealand Housing Survey is out today!

This public data release draws on the experiences of 5,232 New Zealanders, providing a robust national snapshot. Results can be explored by region, age, income, ethnicity, household type, tenure, and more. These detailed perspectives reveal not only what New Zealanders are saying, but also where pressure points lie — who is thriving, who is struggling, and which issues require urgent attention.

The data covers both homeowners AND non-homeowners (around 50% of respondents are already homeowners), which reflects not just housing needs but also actual decisions that New Zealanders are already actively making.

We all know action‑based data is critical for those deploying capital. For developers, iwi, councils, and government partners, these insights offer a clear, up‐to‐date evidence base for planning and making investment choices. So, what is really exciting is that this study is longitudinal. This means we will be able to track how stated preferences translate into real behaviours over time as participants become active in the system.

The report is structured around seven core themes, which also form the backbone of the interactive Power BI dashboards we have developed as the first step toward a wider Housing & Urban Insights Tool.

The seven core themes are:

• The National Housing Mood (public priorities)
• Housing Mobility & Agency (people’s sense of choice and control)
• Value Trade‐offs (drivers behind everyday housing decisions) 
• Housing Affordability (financial pressures and behavioural impacts)
• Housing Quality (warmth, dryness, security, and efficiency)
• The Tenure Divide (inequities between renting and owning)
• Retirement Demand (emerging trends in downsizing and ageing‐in‐place)

As we get more data, the dashboards will be continuously updated, and insights will be available for different geographic areas to provide a more local view of housing needs, supplementing the national level dataset. In the meantime, please reach out if you are interested in getting access to the data behind the insights provided in the report.