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New Zealand's housing market has recorded its strongest annual price growth in years, with the national median rising 3.2 per cent year-on-year to $795,000 in February. Combined with January's 0.7 per cent annual gain, it marks back-to-back months of positive annual growth. This is the first consecutive positive readings since the post-pandemic correction began in 2022.

The February result needs seasonal context. January is always the market's quietest month, and February consistently delivers a strong rebound as buyers and sellers return from summer. This year's 5.2 per cent month-on-month lift from $755,000 to $795,000 sits squarely within the historical norm. What is not seasonal, which is why it matters more, is the annual trend. The 3.2 per cent year-on-year gain is the latest sign of hope that the market's long period of price stability is giving way to modest but genuine appreciation.

That appreciation is now broad-based. The national median excluding Auckland reached $715,000, up 2.1 per cent annually, confirming the February result is not an Auckland composition story. Even the two cities that endured the deepest corrections, Auckland and Wellington, are now recording positive annual growth, a meaningful shift after years of pressure.


The market is also better supplied than it has been at any point during the recovery. New listings reached 11,891 in February, up 6.0 per cent on the same month last year, and the 12-month rolling count of listings sits at 111,378. Yet the market is absorbing that supply efficiently: the sales-to-listings conversion ratio reached 72.3 per cent in February, the highest level its been at for the last five years.

The 12-month rolling count of sales reached 80,564, up approximately 9 per cent from the same point last year. Transaction activity has been recovering steadily since the correction low, and February's 6,523 sales were essentially level with February 2025's 6,502 — a sign that the annual improvement is structural rather than month-to-month noise.


A recovery without a tailwind

The Reserve Bank held the Official Cash Rate at 2.25 per cent in February, and inflation remains at 3.1 per cent, slightly above the 1 to 3 per cent target band. The rate-cutting cycle that supported the market through 2024 and 2025 appears to have run its course for now.

That context makes February's result more meaningful, not less. Price growth is accelerating even as the monetary tailwind fades, suggesting the market's recovery is increasingly self-sustaining — driven by genuine demand, realistic vendor expectations, and a stock of buyers who have been waiting for the right conditions rather than chasing capital gains.

The question heading into autumn is whether February's momentum can survive the typical seasonal slowdown. Historically, March holds or extends February's gains before the April-July period brings its predictable softening. If the annual growth rate holds above 3 per cent through the cooler months, it will be a signal that New Zealand's housing market has genuinely entered a new phase.

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