Renting vs Owning: How the Split Shifted, 2013 to 2023
Across every published area of three Censuses, the share of households renting moved from 35.2 per cent in 2013 to 35.4 in 2018 and 34.0 per cent in 2023. The decade contains a turn most people have not heard about: renting peaked at the 2018 Census and eased by 2023, so the owning share, counting trust-held homes with owners, ended the decade at 66.0 per cent, above its 64.8 of 2013. About 1,776,400 households sit under the 2023 figures.
Two definitional notes carry the page. Trust-held homes are shown separately and combined with owners, because they are owner-occupied in substance; the trust share itself fell from 14.8 to 11.1 per cent across the decade, a quiet consequence of trust law changes. And every count beneath these shares was randomly rounded to base three at source, so shares are solid while absolute counts are shown rounded to the nearest hundred.
Where renting grew, and where it did not
The national shift is modest; the regional spread is the story. Ranked by the change in the renting share across the decade:
| Region | Renting share, 2013 | 2023 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auckland | 38.5% | 40.4% | +1.9 pts |
| Otago | 32.0% | 30.9% | -1.0 pts |
| Canterbury | 31.7% | 30.4% | -1.3 pts |
| Wellington | 35.1% | 33.7% | -1.4 pts |
| Southland | 30.3% | 28.5% | -1.8 pts |
| Tasman | 25.0% | 22.5% | -2.5 pts |
| Nelson | 31.6% | 28.7% | -2.8 pts |
| Waikato | 37.3% | 34.4% | -2.9 pts |
| Marlborough | 29.1% | 25.9% | -3.2 pts |
| Taranaki | 32.0% | 28.6% | -3.4 pts |
| Manawatū-Whanganui | 34.8% | 31.1% | -3.6 pts |
| Hawke's Bay | 34.0% | 30.4% | -3.6 pts |
| Gisborne | 40.9% | 37.1% | -3.8 pts |
| Bay of Plenty | 35.2% | 30.3% | -4.9 pts |
| Northland | 33.8% | 28.6% | -5.2 pts |
| West Coast | 31.9% | 25.4% | -6.5 pts |
Each region links to its hub, where the same tenure split runs area by area: within any region, central areas rent at multiples of the outer ones, and the area-level split is on all 2,210 pages.
What moves a tenure share
A rising renting share in a region is three stories in some proportion, and the region hub helps separate them. Prices outrunning deposits, the affordability story, dominant where the renting share rose while rents also rose fastest. Building mix: apartments and townhouses rent at higher rates than standalone houses, so a region that intensified shifts toward renting even with ownership rates steady person by person. Age structure: renting concentrates in the twenties and thirties, so regions that attract that decade rent more, whatever their housing market is doing.
What the shares mean in money is the rest of this site: what renting households actually pay is on the area pages, what owners and renters spend is in the tenure spending guide, and whether to move from one column of this page to the other is the rent vs buy calculator's question.
Related pages
- Housing costs by area: the split, area by area, all three Censuses.
- Owner vs renter spending: what each column spends.
- Where rents rose fastest: the price side of the same decade.
- Renting vs buying: the decision between the columns.