Where House Prices Are Booming Right Now (2026)

Five years ago, every NZ market stood on the same hilltop. Then prices fell into the valley together... and since then, they've gone in completely different directions. So, where are prices actually booming, and where are they still hitting record lows? In this episode, Ed and Andrew count down the fastest-recovering markets, and reveal the North/South divide splitting the country. You'll learn: The markets leading the recoveryWhy seven North Island towns just hit fresh record lowsHow to tell a real boom from a small-town flukeThe lesson? Stop reading the national number. And a boom tells you what already happened, not what happens next. Let us know your thoughts by leaving us a voice message on the Property Academy Hotline⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.speakpipe.com/PropertyAcademy For more from Opes Partners: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up for the weekly Private Property newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.opespartners.co.nz/newsletter-sign-up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/opes_partners/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@opespartners

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome along to the Property Academy Podcast by Orbis Partners. I'm your host, Stephen Knight.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm Andrew Nicoll.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  And this is the show that helps Kiwis go from zero to five investment properties. So you could be financially free and stick around for the next 15 minutes because you're going to learn warehouse prices are actually booming right now. The one thing all of them have in common and how to tell a real boom from a small town that's just having a good month. Now, Andrew, how would you sum up the New Zealand property market right now?

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Well, I think if you picture a hill, five years ago, every market in the country was at the top of the hill, looking out over the peak and then prices fell and everyone walked down the valley together. And since then, everyone's kind of gone off in different directions. So some have climbed their way all the way back to the top. Others have just kind of walked around the hill and some of them have actually gone a bit further into the gully.

• 0:57Speaker 00

  Well, if we start with, with some of the bad news, because it's where most people live. Seven districts, seven parts of the country out of 66 had a fresh record low in August, right? So a new-

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Hardly the award you want, is it?

• 1:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, new bottom of the market, right? So house prices, national house prices bottomed out in about May 2023. Little bit of a bounce back, seven out of 66 areas have hit that brand new low. Places like Wellington, Lower Heights, Apahat, Kapiti, Caterton, Horofunua, like all of the places of the wider region. Auckland is also one of them, or was one of them in July 2026. That hit a brand new low, bounced it back a little bit in August. But Wellington City is now 31% below where house prices were at the peak of the market. Auckland's about 25% below.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  Hamilton, about 17% below that peak in 2021. But if we think about the opposite, where house prices are booming, what I want to do is count down the top five areas where property prices are booming right now. And coming in at number five is Invercargill, our southernmost city of 58,000 people. And they are up 22% since the bottom of the market. And house prices are currently sitting 8% above where they were back at the peak. So they've not even climbed back to the top of the hill, they've kept on climbing.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Isn't that amazing to think that people in Invercargill are reading about, you know, this terrible market? And they're thinking, not my house.

• 2:43Speaker 00

  So I've said it in a couple of podcasts, I was just at the Property Investors Conference in Toorong over the weekend. And there was a big contingent from Southland. Big reason behind that is that Southland is about to host the Property Investors Conference next year in 2027. I've already said you're going to it.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah?

• 3:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the amazing thing is that Lee, who's actually been on our show, she's running that conference next year. She was running around in a superwoman outfit, literally, I took photos to show you. And I was like, look, they are chipper, those property investors from Southland.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  They won't be next year.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Why not?

• 3:22Speaker 01

  No, it will have levelled off surely a bit by then.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, that'll be-

• 3:26Speaker 01

  We'll see.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  Well, you've made bets about the property market in the past, Andrew, I've lost them, so we'll see what happens.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  I had to pay that money to Lynn.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  But if Invercargill comes in at number five, what's coming in at number four?

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Central Itagua, so you've got Cromwell, Alexandra, Wanaka's neighbours. You're up 17% from the bottom of the market, 9% above its old peak.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  That takes us to Southland, right? So Southland District is basically dairy country. We're talking about places like, oh, surely Nightcaps would be in Southland. Do you know where Nightcaps is?

• 3:59Speaker 01

  No idea.

• 3:59Speaker 00

  Tiny little town, we've got places like-

• 4:02Speaker 01

  You're going to have to take me on some like national tour sometime to go to all these places I've never even heard of.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  You're from the South Island, you should have been to these places.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Where's that other place? Oh, Tiaanau, Tiaanau is also in Southland, lots, lots of places. They are up 13% above its old peak, like in Invercargill, up 22% from its bottom. Over the last 12 months, Southland property prices, and I'm talking about the district as opposed to the wider region, Southland District was up 13% that year. It's real wild, like those, those dairy prices, high dairy prices are really helping the farmers at the moment. So that was the strongest property market in the country.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Do you know what I find interesting about that comment? So strong dairy price doesn't mean that the farmers are going out there and driving up house prices though?

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Well, what, what could happen though? Farmers are having a good year, they go and buy a new tractor, tractors are very expensive. They go and they maintain the machinery or they make some investments and they might buy some new stock. I was just in Taranaki two weekends ago, talking to my brother-in-law about how his mates just bought a big dairy herd, bought another 300 or so cows and dropped 600 grand on this dairy herd.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  That makes complete sense.

• 5:18Speaker 00

  So if you're in the farming community, it's not just that you're doing well. And so you go for a big spend up in Queenstown or buy that aspirational house in Tiaanau. It can also be that you-

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Your bakery, selling lots of jam buns and now everyone's got money.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Well, do you know, I was driving up from, I was driving up from Toorong the other day, stopped in at a petrol station. Gosh, if you stop in Mercer, just south of Auckland, cream doughnut, $4.90 these days.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Did you eat one?

• 5:44Speaker 00

  Of course not, it's too expensive, Andrew, back in my day, those were a dollar 50. But if we were in that beautiful bakery at Nightcaps, I bet that'd still be about a dollar 50. I'll let you do number one, but number two, warehouse prices are booming at the moment, Gray District. Now, you've got to be a little bit careful about Gray District. Remember, that's a tiny little district where Graymouth is on the west coast of the South Island. Because it is currently 30% above its peak. So what I mean is when property prices peaked in November 2021, Gray District house prices are currently 30% above that. They have increased 51% from the bottom of the market,

• 6:28Speaker 00

  which is actually bigger than number one on our list. But I've put it at number two because in these small areas, house prices start jumping up and down and up and down. In fact, if I ran these same numbers last month, it wouldn't have made the top five. But house prices jumped 32% last month. And so that's just to say, it was a big percentage jump, but it didn't mean that every house in Gray District jumped 32%. It's just such a small area, there are so few properties selling, that it's not one that we can point to with absolute confidence and say, Gray District, that's where it's really going off at the moment, right? But what comes to number one?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Number one, Queenstown Lakes District. So you're up 21% from the bottom of the market, 15% above the old peak. And it's not just recovering, like this is territory it has never been in before. You've got 52,000 people, so unlike Gray District, this boom is real.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  Why do you reckon Queenstown's doing well, even though house prices are really expensive? Whereas like Auckland's a little bit cheaper than Queenstown, but house prices have been flat and Queenstown's booming.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  The only logic that I can apply is, is it's so landlocked and it's kind of takes a wee bit. It's quite limited, or it has been quite limited in terms of the supply. And it's such an aspirational place in New Zealand that I think that if you're moving to New Zealand and you're rich enough not to care so much about your job, i.e. you might have some investments you live off. I'm not living in Auckland, I'm living in Queenstown. If I'm looking for a job, I'm probably going to Auckland. But if I'm doing it for lifestyle and moving here, I'm off to Queenstown.

• 8:13Speaker 00

  Well, the other one that I want to talk about though is Christchurch as well. Now, Christchurch hasn't made our, our top five of areas that are booming, but it's, it's just underneath it.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, so 410,000 people, up 11% off the bottom and it's just a whisker below its old peak. Now, it's up 2.5% over the last year. And again, while Auckland went backwards, you've got the Waimeka Dairy, you've got Rangiora and Kaipoi, they're 2% off its old peak.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  These are satellite towns, eh?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Yep. And then you've got Selwyn, where you've got places like Rolleston. So it's 5% off, both holding. And on the seasonally adjusted regional numbers, Canterbury as a whole is at a record high. Now, I still think there's some room for some more growth, but it's certainly gone through that real recovery. And being the biggest city in the South Island is making record highs. Meanwhile, you know, you look at the North Island, complete opposite. So you've got the same country, same interest rates, same government, but a tale of two islands.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  But if we look at all of the areas that are doing really well, as you said, it's the South Island that's doing really well at the moment, the North Island's really struggling. The areas that are doing it the hardest are concentrated in Wellington. But the other thing you've just got to remember is this could all change. We ran these numbers, these exact same numbers back in April, so three to four months ago. And if I look at some of the areas that were leading the charge back then, we were talking about Westland on the west coast, it was the best in the country back then. Today, it's down 13% over the last three months and it's slipped back below.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  It's old peak. So it was doing record highs, now it's come below that. Meanwhile, Gray District, right next door, only an hour up the road, has gone from falling 14% to now being second on our table. Again, that's the risk of these small areas where they could be up today, down tomorrow. That's why, even though on the actual percentages, if you're listening, Gray District had the quote unquote better numbers. But because Queenstown's got so many more people, it's like, well, that's legitimately going to be number one on the list in terms of the booms that we've got confidence in. Same with Mackenzie District. Last time I ran these numbers, I think it was right up the top as well. Now it's slipped down.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  It's because you've been bagging Twizl for so long.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, but it's a small area, it could be up tomorrow. So you've just got to be a little bit careful about these. But the way that I separate it, to try and tell the difference between a real boom and just a little bit of a fluke is a small town's a bit like a dinghy, isn't it?

• 10:58Speaker 01

  A bit like a dinghy.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  A dinghy, you know, like a little rowboat, a row, row, row your boat.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  I've seen one.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  How so?

• 11:04Speaker 00

  I'm from a small town. Well, in that, in that the ups and downs of the waves and storms of the property market.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  You feel them more.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  You're going to feel the ups and downs more, you're going to be pushed around a little bit more.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Not a bad analogy.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  There's going to be more, there's going to be more turbulence in the, in the rocky waves of the property market. Now, if I compare that to something like Christchurch, which has about, I don't know, about 80 to 90 times the people as Gray District, that's not a dinghy, it's a ferry.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  With an E R R Y, not the ones you're used to. Since you've got a four-year-old daughter who's probably into ferries at the moment.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  I was more thinking you, but go on.

• 11:47Speaker 00

  Well, if we think about the dinghy that is Gray District, house sales, the number of properties transacted, moved 32% in a single month. And it was probably an extra two houses selling that month. Compare that to Christchurch, it's going to take a lot of movement for, for an extra 32% more houses selling within a single month. And so that's why, again, I've just got a bit of a, bit more confidence in some of the areas with the bigger populations. You know, 50,000 plus compared to some of those smaller areas.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Now, does that mean that Wellington's the Titanic?

• 12:17Speaker 00

  How long did it take you to come up with that one?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Unfortunately for the listeners, you couldn't see that eye roll.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  Speaking of Wellington as the Titanic, one of the things I, when journalists call me up and we have a good old chit chat about, about the property market, I always say to them, Jill, because it was Jill most recently, Jill, you've got to remember, I live in Auckland, you live in Wellington. Auckland and Wellington are not the New Zealand property market. They are a big part of it, but they are not the New Zealand property market. So the people we're talking to, when we're going out for a coffee, catching up with our friends, well, they might have quite a dim view of property, but actually there are parts of the country that are leading the recovery. And it's a story that I just feel like has been missed. And so I'm going to keep on talking about it. And it's not to say these areas are going to keep on booming forever, right?

• 13:07Speaker 00

  But it's just to say, if you want to see evidence of a recovery, you can find it.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  If I were picking my next Titanic, it'd probably be Queenstown. And I, I think you've just got to remember that every dog has its day. And if you're investing in property, not just buying a property to live in, and you're wanting to think about, you know, where I'm going to make the most money, you're probably not going to go the place that's booming right now.

• 13:29Speaker 00

  And over the last 15 minutes, you've learned warehouse prices are actually booming right now. The one thing all of them have in common and how to tell a real boom from just a small town having a good month. Right, let's wrap it up there, but please don't forget to write a review and subscribe to the podcast. Really does help us get the message out to more people.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  Thanks for listening to the Property Academy Podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Knight.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  And I'm Andrew Nicoll.

• 13:53Speaker 00

  We're going to be back here tomorrow with even more daily strategies, tactics and insights to help you get the most out of the New Zealand property market. Until next time.