Low rates of building in Auckland since 2005, combined with ongoing population growth, have led to a physical shortage of houses. Population-per-dwelling is estimated to have risen considerably in Auckland over the past few years (figure 5.1).
While the size of the current housing shortage is uncertain, based on data from the 2013 Census of Population and  1  The house price data from Property IQ gives a more lagged picture, but has slowed down even more than the REINZ data, suggesting the change in sales composition may have caused the REINZ index to somewhat understate the slowing in house prices.