An overview of the Auckland economy for March 2026, in charts and graphs and with some commentary.

Measures covered are: house prices and numbers sold, weekly rents, building consents, employment and unemployment, GDP, business and consumer confidence, retail sales, imports.

Highlights include:

• real* Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the year ended December 2025 was 0.1% higher than for the year ended December 2024; in the rest of New Zealand, the annual change was 0.5% rise. Both growth rates: continued the September improvement; still barely positive yet; below most of 2021 to 2024; slightly above their 2020 (Covid) troughs; below 2010 to 2019;
• real* retail sales for the year ended December 2025 were 0.4% higher than for the year ended December 2024; in the rest of New Zealand, the annual change was a 0.7% rise. Both growth rates continued the improvements of the last several months, in contrast to the falls from 2021 to 2024. They are still barely positive despite population increases, so not yet returned to the pre-Covid levels of at least 2%;
• Median house price for the month of January 2026 was $950,000 (in real* dollars: similar to a year ago; continuing a three year mild downtrend; 39% below the 2021 record peak; below ten years ago);
• number of houses sold for the year ended January 2026 was 23,968: similar to the last seven months; 31% above the May 2023 trough; 34% below the 2021 peak; a little above mid-2017 to mid-2020;
• average weekly rent for the month of December 2025 was $668 (in real* dollars: similar to the last five months; 14% below February 2021; similar to ten years ago). For the rest of New Zealand, the figure was $598: the highest since February 2025 (but highly seasonal); 4% below a year ago; the lowest-equal December figure since 2020;
• number of new dwellings consented in the year ended January 2026 was 15,779: rising steadily since April; 13% above a year ago; 28% below the September 2022 peak; 4% above the 2019 pre-Covid peak;
• real* value of new non-residential buildings consented in the year ended January 2026 was $2,662 million: the same as November and December; 27% above August’s trough; 5% above a year ago; 24% below 2022 and 2019 peaks; 16% above the 2020 trough;
• real* value of imports by Auckland seaports for the year ended January 2026 was $32.3 billion: gradually rising 4.8% over the last year, still 6% below April 2023, but 21% higher than the 2020 Covid trough. For the rest of New Zealand, the figure was $31.8 billion: slightly above the last year and a half, 22% above the 2020 trough, and 24% lower than their 2023 post-Covid rebound peak.

*Note: real dollars/values are after adjusting for the effects of inflation each quarter, so a similar ‘real’ level means that a value rose at a similar rate to inflation.

March 2026

Previous updates. 

January

February

2025

November

December