Tony Alexander Survey Report March 2026

Net selling plans strengthen

Welcome to the latest monthly Investor Insight survey compiled by Crockers Property Management and Tony Alexander. Each month we survey a selection of the many thousands of residential property investors on our databases with a view to gauging how things are changing over time across a wide range of indicators.

For instance, we will track changes in pressures on rents, points of particular concern, and plans regarding property purchases and intentions to sell.

Key points of interest from this month’s survey, which received 230 responses include the following.

A record net 26% of existing property investors say they plan selling their properties. This is up from 17% last month and 11% six months ago.
A record low 44% plan never selling or holding for at least ten years compared with 48% last month and 53% six months back.
Concerns remain elevated about insurance costs and council rates.

ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT BUYING ANOTHER PROPERTY WITHIN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS?

In our March survey a gross 12% of respondents have said that they are thinking about buying another property over the coming 12 months. As the graph here shows this is the lowest reading since our survey started in mid-2021 and a firm decline from 16% in last month’s survey.

Discussion is now widespread about the changed dynamics for property investment in a climate of slow capital gain, high running costs, and shortage of good tenants. As the shift continues towards a sector dominated less by very small investors hoping for capital gain and more toward those focusing on cash yield, this purchasing measure is likely to remain low.

At the same time that buying intentions of our population of existing property investors have hit a record low, selling intentions have reached a record high.

38% of survey respondents compared with 33% last month and a low of 20% in 2022 and 2023 have said they plan selling in this coming 12 month period.

Offsetting these two measures against each other we get the result this month that a record net 26% of existing residential property investors are thinking about selling their property over the coming year.

ROUGHLY HOW LONG DO YOU PLAN KEEPING YOUR INVESTMENT PROPERTY(S) FROM NOW?

Our usual graph in this section shows the distribution of time periods for which people are currently thinking about retaining their investment property assets.

The proportion who plan never selling or holding for at least ten years has declined to 44% compared with 48% last month and a five year average of 58%.

Note that there will be a slight downwardly trending bias in this series because the population we survey is of existing property investors as of 2021.

IF YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT BUYING ANOTHER PROPERTY WILL IT BE NEW OR EXISTING?

There are no clear fresh trends underway with respect to whether those existing investors planning to buy again will favour new over an existing property.

The main change occurred over 2023-24 when the preference to purchase a newly built property fell away in favour of purchasing one already in place for some time.

ARE YOU PLANNING TO RAISE YOUR RENTS IN THE NEXT 6 MONTHS?

A net 42% of landlords plan raising their rents if they can over the next 12 months. This is down from 44% last month but it is not apparent from the graph here that a fresh decline in rent raising plans is underway. Things broadly look stable since the middle of last year.

IF YOU PLAN RAISING YOUR RENTS, HOW MUCH BY?

The average rise in rent which landlords would like to achieve in the coming year is 4% - unchanged over the past three months.

HOW ARE YOU FINDING THE ATTITUDE OF YOUR BANK AT THE MOMENT?

Respondents to this question can choose amongst three options.

Getting tougher
Getting more relaxed
No change, nothing apparent.

We can calculate the net proportion feeling that things are getting tougher and show the result in the following graph.

Residential property investors overall feel that their bank is accommodating. However the degree of confidence in this situation is slowly easing off.

WHICH THINGS CONCERN YOU MOST REGARDING RETURNS ON YOUR INVESTMENT GOING FORWARD?

Respondents are able to choose more than one response to this question and results for all choices are shown in the following graph.

The two top concerns remain council rates and insurance costs.

But what we are really interested in are the trends in these measures which we now turn to in no particular order.

Concerns about prices falling rose to unusually high levels in the middle of last year but have since settled down with no fresh change in concerns recently apparent.

One area showing a slow rise in concerns as we head in the general election is tenant regulations.

Worries about interest rates rising jumped strongly at the start of the year and remain elevated.

Looking through the volatility over the past couple of months it still looks like there is a slow and small decline underway in the proportion of landlords concerned about council rates. This may reflect government comments regarding imposing rate caps.

With many insurance premiums easing marginally recently there is a slow decline in concerns about insurance costs although these concerns do remain elevated.

Worries about net migration flows are easing off now that the monthly data from Statistics New Zealand are showing an improving trend to be underway.

Worries about an absence of tenants have lifted this month.

HOW EASY IS IT TO FIND GOOD TENANTS AT THE MOMENT?

A slight easing trend in landlords reporting difficulties securing good tenants has stalled this month with a net 32% from 30% last month saying things are difficult.

There were 230 responses received in this month’s survey, with respondents located as follows.

Region	%
Northland	1.3
Auckland	46.1
Bay of Plenty	5.7
Waikato	6.5
Hawkes Bay/Gisborne	4.8
Taranaki	1.7
Manawatu-Wanganui	2.6
Wellington	12.2
Nelson, Tas., Marl	1.3
Canterbury	11.7
Dunedin City	3.9
Queenstown Lakes	1.7
Southland	0.4