Housing in Kingston
Kingston is a statistical area 2, in Queenstown-Lakes District, one of 127 published across Otago. A statistical area 2 is a Census geography of two to four thousand people and is not a suburb boundary: read it as the area around here. The guide to reading this data covers what that means, along with the four other rules these figures are published under.
Your figure stays in this browser. This compares the median rent paid by renting households here against the income you enter. It is not a measure of what the area costs on average, because owning households pay a mortgage rather than rent and the Census does not collect what they pay.
Who owns and who rents
Of the 189 households that stated their tenure, 114 owned or partly owned their home, 12 held it in a family trust, and 60 did not own it. The trust figure matters more than it looks: a home in a family trust is owned by the household in every practical sense, so the ownership rate quoted above adds the two together, and a figure that counted only the first would understate ownership in wealthier areas where trusts are common.
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These figures are not from a sample, so they carry no sampling error and the bars have no error range drawn on them.
How it has changed
The Census runs every five years or so. These are the same measures in 2013, 2018 and 2023, in the money of each Census rather than adjusted, so part of any rise in rent is inflation. Read the direction rather than the exact step.
| Census | Median weekly rent | Median household income | Households | Owned or in trust |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $210 | $60,000 | 105 | 67% |
| 2018 | $340 | $86,400 | 144 | 69% |
| 2023 | $402 | $115,500 | 189 | 67% |
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These figures are not from a sample, so they carry no sampling error and the bars have no error range drawn on them.
About Otago
Otago contains two housing markets with almost nothing in common. Dunedin is a university city where a large student population rents in a concentrated ring of suburbs, keeping ownership rates low and rents oddly structured. Queenstown Lakes is one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, driven by international tourism and holiday homes, with a resident workforce that struggles to live where it works.
Student areas and resort areas both produce figures that look like housing stress and mean different things. In Dunedin a very low ownership rate near the campus is students renting, not a settled population locked out of buying. In Queenstown and Wanaka a high rent with a modest median income is exactly what it appears to be.
What people earn in this region
The median annual income from wages and salaries across Otago was $53,660 in the 2024 tax year. That is a regional figure, not a figure for this area: Stats NZ does not publish earnings at this geography, and the region covers a great deal of ground. It is here because a housing cost means little without something to hold it against.
Earnings in Otago, by age and over 25 years.
Areas nearest to Kingston
The six closest published areas, measured in a straight line between the centre of each. A straight line is not a drive: where a harbour, a river or a range sits in between, the road distance is longer, sometimes several times longer.
| Area | Distance | Median weekly rent |
|---|---|---|
| Sunshine Bay-Fernhill | 16 km | $624 |
| Queenstown Central | 21 km | $500 |
| Queenstown East | 22 km | $600 |
| Warren Park | 23 km | $550 |
| Frankton Arm | 23 km | $630 |
| Jacks Point | 23 km | $700 |
People within reach of Kingston
How many people live within a given distance, and how that has changed since 2022. Useful if you are weighing up a business site, a commute, or simply how built up an area is.
| Distance | People (2025) | Change since 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Within 30 km | 26,402 | +3,505 (+15.3%) |
These are modelled estimates, not people counted. Stats NZ spreads its population estimates across a one kilometre grid, so a figure for a small area is the model as much as the place, and the numbers here are rounded from fractional values. Every other figure on this page is from the Census, which counts. Distances are measured in a straight line from the centre of this area, so a circle can cross a harbour or a range that no road crosses.
Work out the population within any distance of any area, at whatever radius you need.
Work out what living here would cost you
- Rent affordability calculator What rent your income supports, against the $402 a week paid here.
- Rent vs buy calculator Whether renting here or buying here leaves you better off over the years you would stay.
- Mortgage repayment calculator What a loan on a place here would cost each fortnight. The Census collects no mortgage figure, so this is the only way to get one.
- House deposit savings calculator How long a deposit takes to save at what you can put aside.
- First home buyer total cost calculator The full cash needed to buy, not just the deposit.
- Commute cost calculator What driving from here to work costs a year, which is the figure that decides whether a cheaper area further out is actually cheaper.
Other areas in Otago
The 127 areas published across this region, for comparison. The regional median weekly rent is $400, and the areas run from $150 to $710.
Where these numbers come from
Stats NZ 2023 Census household tables by statistical area 2, with 2013 and 2018 for comparison, used with attribution. Counts are randomly rounded to base three, and rent and income are measured over different households and must not be divided into each other: how to read this data covers the five rules in full.