Selling a Tenanted Property Calculator NZ 2026

Quick answer: Selling does not end a tenancy. On a periodic tenancy you can give 90 days written notice with no reason to empty the house before you list, or 42 days notice once you have an unconditional sale that requires vacant possession. On a fixed term tenancy you cannot end it early just because the property has sold, so you either sell with the tenancy running on or the tenant agrees in writing to leave. At $580 a week, a 7 week campaign and a 4 week settlement, keeping the tenant in place earns $6,380.00 of rent you would otherwise lose, while emptying the house first costs $7,540.00 in vacancy and adds about 15 weeks. Enter your own numbers below.

This calculator is for a New Zealand landlord who has decided to sell a rental and now has to decide what to do about the tenant. It models the three routes that are actually open to you and prices each one. The first is selling with the tenancy in place, where the buyer takes over as the new landlord, the rent keeps arriving right up to settlement and your buyer pool narrows mostly to investors. The second is marketing the property tenanted and then delivering vacant possession, serving the 42 day notice once the agreement goes unconditional, which keeps the rent flowing through the campaign but forces settlement out to at least 42 days. The third is ending the tenancy first on 90 days notice and marketing an empty, presented house, which gives you the widest buyer pool and the full price but hands you a long stretch of vacancy and a staging bill. Enter your weekly rent, your expected sale price, how long the campaign is likely to run and your settlement period, then tell it whether the tenancy is periodic or fixed term. Every figure updates as you type. Because the price effect of selling tenanted cannot be measured reliably in New Zealand, the calculator also shows the break-even discount, so you only have to judge whether the real effect is bigger or smaller than that number rather than guess a percentage from nothing.

Updated July 2026  Current rates and legislation applied.

Verification & Methodology

Notice periods: the rules in force since 30 January 2025 under the Residential Tenancies Amendment Act 2024. Periodic tenancy, landlord: 90 days written notice with no reason required, or 42 days where the property has been sold under an unconditional sale and purchase agreement with a requirement to give vacant possession. Tenant: 21 days. Verified against tenancy.govt.nz, ending a periodic tenancy.
Fixed term tenancies: Tenancy Services states that the landlord cannot give notice to end the tenancy early just because the property has sold. A fixed term can only be ended early by written agreement with the tenant, or by the Tenancy Tribunal on severe hardship. Source: tenancy.govt.nz, selling a rental property and ending a fixed term tenancy early.
Fixed term expiry: to stop a fixed term rolling into a periodic tenancy, written notice must be given no earlier than 90 days and no later than 21 days before the expiry date. Source: tenancy.govt.nz, expiry of a fixed term.
The sale does not end the tenancy: the buyer takes over as the new landlord and the terms and conditions in the tenancy agreement are not affected by the sale, per tenancy.govt.nz.
Viewings and photographs: landlords must get the tenant's permission to show potential buyers or professionals such as a registered valuer through the house, and must get the tenant's permission before entering to take photos. The tenant can refuse to allow photographs of their personal possessions, and can refuse open homes and auctions at the property. Source: tenancy.govt.nz, access and the selling a rental property page.
Inspections: a maximum of once every four weeks, with at least 48 hours and no more than 14 days written notice. Entry for repairs or maintenance needs at least 24 hours notice, between 8am and 7pm. Source: tenancy.govt.nz.
Commission: read from one maintained file shared with our Real Estate Commission Calculator and every agency page, last researched 27 July 2026. Ten of the twelve structures are indicative rather than published rate cards, and the flag for your selection is shown under the dropdown. Commission is quoted exclusive of GST and marketing is charged separately. This page adds 15% GST before comparing totals.
Marketing: Marketing and advertising are charged separately and typically range from about $1,000 to $10,000 or more depending on the campaign. Marketing is the same under all three routes here, so it is left out of the comparison rather than double counted.
Market context: the defaults use the REINZ national median sale price of $770,000 and median days to sell of 48 days for June 2026, from the REINZ Monthly Property Report released 15 July 2026, and an approximate national median weekly rent of $580 from Tenancy Services bond data as maintained on our NZ average rent reference page.
Editable estimates, not published figures: the vacant presentation cost defaults to $3,000. New Zealand staging quotes commonly start around $1,500 plus GST for a small apartment and run to $3,000 plus GST and beyond for a larger home over a standard hire period, so most family home campaigns land between about $2,000 and $5,000 including GST. The tenanted price effect defaults to 3.0%. There is no independent New Zealand study that measures it. Agency material commonly claims vacant possession adds 5% to 7%, but that is a vendor facing marketing claim, not evidence, so treat the field as your own assumption and use the break-even figure instead.
Not included: mortgage interest and other holding costs, rates, insurance, legal fees, reletting or letting fees, any bright-line or income tax on the sale, and any bond or damage dispute. This is an estimate, not a quote, and not legal or financial advice.

Worked Example: A $770,000 Rental on a Periodic Tenancy

Take a landlord selling a three bedroom rental appraised at $770,000, which is the REINZ national median sale price for June 2026. The tenant pays $580 a week on a periodic tenancy. The agent expects a 7 week campaign, which is 49 days and about the national median days to sell, and a 4 week settlement. The agency is Barfoot & Thompson on their published tiered structure of 3.95% on the first $400,000 then 2% on the balance, minimum $11,000, all plus GST.

Route one, sell with the tenant in place. The tenancy simply continues and the buyer becomes the new landlord on settlement day. Rent arrives for all 11 weeks, which at $580 a week is $6,380.00. The trade off is the buyer pool. An owner occupier who needs somewhere to live cannot buy this unless vacant possession can be delivered, so realistically the offers come from investors. Assume a 3.0% price effect and the sale price becomes $746,900.00. Commission on that is $22,738.00 plus $3,410.70 GST, so $26,148.70. Net proceeds plus rent come to $727,131.30, and settlement is 77 days away.

Route two, market tenanted and settle with vacant possession. The property is marketed with the tenant living in it, so the rent keeps arriving through the campaign. Once the agreement goes unconditional and requires vacant possession, the landlord serves the 42 day notice. Rent runs for the 7 week campaign plus the 42 day notice, which is 91 days of rent, or $7,540.00, more than route one. The buyer gets an empty house so there is no tenanted price effect, and the sale price stays at $770,000 with commission of $26,680.00 including GST. Net proceeds plus rent are $750,860.00, which is $23,728.70 ahead of route one, and settlement lands 91 days out because the settlement period has to stretch to cover the 42 days. That extra fortnight is the entire cost of the best outcome on the page.

Route three, end the tenancy first and market an empty house. The landlord serves 90 days notice today. The tenant pays rent through the notice period, which is $7,457.14, then leaves. From that point nothing comes in. Two weeks of cleaning and painting, a 7 week campaign and a 4 week settlement means 91 days of vacancy, which is $7,540.00 of rent not received, and a presentation bill of $3,000. The price is the full $770,000 and the buyer pool is everybody. Net proceeds plus rent are $747,777.14, which is $20,645.84 ahead of route one but $3,082.86 behind route two, and settlement is 181 days away, roughly 13 weeks later than route two. On these numbers the landlord gets a worse result for a great deal more waiting, and the only reason to choose it is if the tenant's presentation or cooperation would genuinely wreck the campaign.

Why the Sale Does Not End the Tenancy

The most common misunderstanding among first time vendor landlords is that selling somehow terminates the tenancy. It does not. Tenancy Services is direct about it: the buyer takes over the tenancy as the new landlord, and the terms and conditions in the tenancy agreement are not affected by the sale. The bond transfers, the rent stays the same, and the tenant keeps every right they had the day before the contract was signed. That is why the sale and purchase agreement has to state clearly whether the property is being sold with vacant possession or subject to the existing tenancy, and why your lawyer needs the tenancy agreement in front of them when that contract is drafted. If the contract promises vacant possession and the tenancy cannot legally be ended by settlement, you are the one in default, not the tenant.

The Fixed Term Trap

If the tenancy is fixed term, most of your choices disappear. A landlord cannot give notice to end a fixed term early just because the property has sold. There is no 42 day sale notice and no 90 day no cause notice available inside a fixed term. What is left is selling with the tenancy in place, which an investor buyer may actively like because they inherit a paying tenant and skip the reletting cost, or asking the tenant to agree in writing to end the tenancy early. The tenant is under no obligation to say yes, and if the request is worth thousands of dollars to you it is reasonable for them to want something for the disruption of moving out early. The other route is the Tenancy Tribunal, which can end a fixed term early where a party would suffer severe hardship if it continued, but wanting a better sale price is not severe hardship. There is one more timing trap on a fixed term. To stop it rolling into a periodic tenancy at its end date, written notice has to be given no earlier than 90 days and no later than 21 days before the expiry date. If you were counting on the term simply running out and you miss that window, the tenancy becomes periodic and you are back to 90 days notice on top of the months you have already waited.

Viewings, Photographs and Access

Access is where a tenanted campaign is won or lost, and the law puts the tenant in a stronger position than most landlords expect. Landlords must get the tenant's permission to show potential buyers through the house, and the same applies to professionals such as a registered valuer. Landlords must also get the tenant's permission before entering the house to take photos, and the tenant can refuse to allow photographs of their personal possessions. Tenants can refuse open homes and auctions held at the property outright, and they can limit access to particular days and times. A tenant should not unreasonably refuse access, but reasonable conditions are entirely proper: notice before every viewing, a set window on set days, and the tenant present. Routine inspections are a separate regime and are capped at once every four weeks with at least 48 hours and no more than 14 days written notice. Entry for repairs or maintenance needs at least 24 hours notice and must be between 8am and 7pm. The practical answer is to sit down with the tenant before the sign goes up, agree a written viewing schedule and a photography date, and put it in writing. A cooperative tenant who keeps the place tidy for private viewings by appointment is worth far more to your campaign than a hostile one you have technically outmanoeuvred.

What the Price Effect Actually Is

The honest position is that nobody in New Zealand publishes a reliable measurement of what selling tenanted does to price, and you should be suspicious of any figure presented as though somebody has. What can be described accurately is the mechanism. Owner occupiers are the largest and usually the most emotional group of buyers, and they cannot buy a house they are not able to move into. Once vacant possession is off the table your buyer pool narrows to investors, who price on yield rather than on how the kitchen makes them feel, and who will not pay a premium for a garden they will never use. Working against that, an investor buying a tenanted property gets an income stream from day one, no reletting fee and no vacancy, and a good long standing tenant is a genuine asset to them. Presentation cuts the other way again: you cannot stage an occupied rental, viewings are limited, and photography depends on the tenant's consent and on their furniture. That is why this calculator asks you for the figure rather than asserting one, and why the break-even number shown with the results is the more useful output. It tells you the discount at which selling tenanted stops paying, so the only judgement left is whether the real effect in your market is bigger or smaller than that.

Who This Calculator Is For

It is for any New Zealand landlord who has decided to sell a rental and now has to sequence the tenancy around the campaign. It is most useful before you sign the agency agreement, because that is when the settlement terms, the vacant possession clause and the notice date are still yours to set. It also helps if you are already under contract and have just realised that the settlement date is closer than the notice period you need.

What This Calculator Assumes

• The rent is paid in full for every week the tenant is in the property. A tenant given 90 days notice can leave earlier on 21 days notice, so the rent shown during a notice period is a best case, not a guarantee.
• Rent is treated as accruing daily at the weekly rent divided by seven, so notice periods stated in days convert cleanly.
• The campaign length and settlement period are the same on all three routes. Marketing spend is also the same on all three, so it is left out rather than double counted.
• Commission is charged on the actual sale price, quoted exclusive of GST, with 15% GST added before totals are compared. Structures flagged indicative are a typical New Zealand structure, not a published rate card.
• Under the market tenanted and settle vacant route, the settlement period is stretched to at least 42 days after the agreement goes unconditional, because the notice cannot be served before that.
• The tenanted price effect and the vacant presentation cost are editable estimates you control, not published New Zealand figures.
• Mortgage interest, rates, insurance, legal fees, letting fees, and any bright-line or income tax on the sale are outside these figures. Selling a rental can trigger tax, so check the bright-line dates separately.
• Nothing here is legal advice. Notices under the Residential Tenancies Act have strict form and service requirements, and an invalid notice is worth nothing.