New Zealand Property Market: Latest Data & Interest Rate Outlook

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]One of the things I've tried to do is to keep abreast with New Zealand and specifically New Zealand property, not least because the Reserve Bank of New Zealand lifted rates higher, migration has been pulled a lot lower, and in fact, we've seen quite a considerable drop in home prices in New Zealand relative to Australia. I always try to get hold of the latest data. Now we've got the April 2026 series from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand. It tells the continued story of well, weakness across the country, but not uniformly so. For context, it's worth noting that the home price index that they publish is down now 15.9% from its peak. That's on average across the country.

[00:00:49]But if you exclude Auckland, it's down just 10.9% and despite this, Southland recorded a new high. So actually, the detail matters.

[00:01:00]The Reserve Bank of New Zealand kept the official cash rate at 2.25% in April, but signaled that rate rises would probably follow if core inflation fails to ease towards 2%. It's well above there at the moment.

[00:01:17]Most major bank economists now think that an OCR hike this year is more a probability than a possibility with ANZ, ASB, Westpac, and Infometrics all bringing forward their hike forecasts with some now anticipating that the first move could be as early as the 27th of May.

[00:01:40]Data from the Reserve Bank released to the end of April shows that the value of new commitments are up just a little, but well off the peaks from December 2025.

[00:01:53]Their next release is 26th of May.

[00:01:56]Annual growth in the total value of new commitments increased for the three main borrowing categories with the total value of lending for owner-occupiers increasing 11.5% for investors up 6.1% and for first-time buyers it was up by 18.9% and the share of new mortgage commitments to first-time buyers remained unchanged at 20.9% in March compared with February 2026 and comparing that to March 2025 there was an increase of 1.2% The share of new commitments to investors increased to 19.9% up from 18.8% in February but there was a decrease in comparison to March 2025 where the share of investors was 21% and the REINZ said that despite a dip in April sales activity most regions remained relatively steady with broader market conditions largely unchanged.