How the cross-lease counts are measured

Every title count on this site comes from one public register, LINZ, counted the same way everywhere. Context sections add other public sources, each named in its section and credited at the foot of the page.

Source

Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) publishes NZ Property Titles under a CC BY 4.0 licence. The layer has no owner names. Suburb and locality boundaries come from NZ Suburbs and Localities. The snapshot was taken on 30 September 2026.

What counts as cross-lease

A title is counted as cross-lease when LINZ records its type as "Cross lease". We checked that this label is reliable in seven suburbs across five cities (Birkenhead, Mount Eden and Howick in Auckland, Hillcrest in Hamilton, Papanui in Christchurch, Karori in Wellington and Mount Maunganui in Tauranga). Between 99.6% and 100% of the titles carrying the label describe a share of the land plus a leasehold flat, and no title with another label did.

Coverage

All 2,426,969 live titles in New Zealand were counted, and the total matched LINZ's own count exactly. 210,171 are cross-lease (8.7%).

Which titles belong to which suburb

Each title is placed in the suburb or locality containing the centre of its land. A suburb that straddles two councils is listed under the first council LINZ names, so council totals here can be slightly higher or lower than a strict council-boundary count.

Neighbourhood figures

Where a page shows neighbourhood figures they come from Stats NZ, 2023 Census (CC BY 4.0), published by statistical area 2 (SA2). SA2s rarely match suburb boundaries, so each suburb is matched using its own titles: we count which SA2 contains the centre of each title's land. An SA2 is described as the suburb's area only when it holds at least 60% of the suburb's titles. Otherwise the areas holding most titles are shown side by side and are never added together. If the areas shown hold less than half of a suburb's titles, the page shows no neighbourhood figures rather than figures that describe somewhere else. Stats NZ suppresses small counts, and pages show those as a dash. The census describes everyone in an area, not only people in cross-lease homes.

Schools, rents, terrain, unit titles, leasehold and new titles

Schools and hospitals come from LINZ NZ Facilities, which maps school sites from the Ministry of Education's directory (state, state-integrated and some independent schools) and Te Whatu Ora hospitals. A school is counted in a suburb when the centre of its site is inside the suburb. Nearest distances are straight lines from a point inside the suburb. Birthing units, clinics and specialist hospitals are left out of "nearest public general hospital". Early childhood centres are not included; school enrolment zones come from a separate Ministry of Education source, described below.

Rents come from MBIE Tenancy Services rental bond data (CC BY 3.0 NZ): the weekly rent recorded when each new bond is lodged, for the latest quarter, all dwelling types. MBIE reports by 2018 statistical area; each 2023 area on a page is matched to the 2018 area holding at least 80% of its land, and the 2018 area's name is shown. A median is shown only when at least 10 bonds were lodged, and an area whose median moved more than 25% in a year is left out. Rents by number of bedrooms are shown only when MBIE's bedroom coding is consistent with a year earlier.

Lie of the land comes from the LINZ national LiDAR 1 m elevation model (bare ground), read on an 8 m grid. Slope is measured under the centre of every building outline LINZ maps in the suburb, and separately across all the suburb's land, including reserves. Shown only when at least 50 buildings are measured and LiDAR covers at least 90% of the suburb. Slope is not a measure of ground stability.

Unit titles and leasehold are counted from live titles. Unit titles on the same unit plan are one development, placed in the suburb holding most of its units. Leasehold terms are read from the term written in the LINZ Title Estates list and compared with the data date; a stated term that has ended does not mean the lease has.

New titles are live titles in LINZ NZ Property Titles first issued on or after 1 January 2020, placed in suburbs the same way as all other titles. They are a signal of subdivision and redevelopment, not a count of homes.

Public transport and climate

Public transport figures use the timetable feeds (GTFS, CC BY 4.0) of Auckland Transport, Metlink and Metro (Christchurch, Selwyn and Waimakariri) for one representative weekday: the share of a suburb's titles within 400 m (straight line) of a stop with a scheduled service, within 400 m of a stop with at least 60 departures that day, and within 800 m of a train station or ferry wharf, plus the median straight-line distance to the nearest stop. Councils without an open feed have no section. Distance to the coast is measured from the centre of each title's land to the coastline on LINZ's 1:50k topographic map (sea and harbour edge, not lakes or rivers), for suburbs with at least 100 titles. Climate figures are NASA POWER 2001–2020 averages on a grid of roughly 50 km (public domain), used because NIWA's station data is not licensed for commercial reuse: they describe the district, and every suburb in a grid cell shares them.

Christchurch District Plan maps

For Christchurch City suburbs, pages show how many titles fall in each zone, qualifying matter and hazard or noise overlay of the operative District Plan, from Christchurch City Council's open data (CC BY 4.0). Each title is placed at the centre of its land. Qualifying matters are areas where the plan limits the extra housing density it would otherwise allow; site-specific heritage items and settings, designations and sites of cultural or ecological significance are not counted. These are planning maps, not assessments of any property; the LIM is authoritative. The section does not count towards whether a page is indexed, because other councils do not have it.

Room for a small stand-alone unit tests two of the new granny-flat rules (a 7 × 10 m space at least 2 m from boundaries and buildings; coverage at most 50% after adding 70 m²) against LINZ parcel and building outlines for residential-zoned sections of 250–5000 m². It is a screen of public data, not a statement that anything can be built; the PIM is authoritative.

Cross-lease schemes

Cross-lease titles are grouped into schemes by the legal description of the shared section and its land district. Of 87,651 schemes, 93.6% have every flat's title found. Flats are counted from equal shares (1/2, 1/3 …); where shares are unequal, the number of titles is used. A small number of schemes show one flat (all shares held on one title), so the two-, three- and four-flat shares can add to slightly under 100%. A scheme's "first title" year is the earliest issue date among its current titles, which can be later than when the scheme was first created. Section area, garages, carports, exclusive-use areas and flats-plan numbers come from the title text.

School enrolment zones

Suburb pages list the schools whose home zones, in the Ministry of Education's Enrolment Scheme Master (CC BY 3.0 NZ), hold at least 5% of the suburb's titles, with the share rounded to the nearest 5%, for suburbs with at least 100 titles. Each title is placed at the centre of its land. The Ministry warns that its zone boundaries are not accurate enough for matching individual properties, so the figures describe the suburb only, and each page says to check the school's own zone map. Zones are not used to compare, rank or search suburbs.

The Ministry says its zone boundaries are not drawn accurately enough to match individual properties, so homes near a boundary can fall on either side. Zones holding under 5% of a suburb's titles are not listed. Some schools, such as state-integrated and special-character schools, have zones covering a whole city or region, so they appear for many suburbs. Schools without an enrolment scheme have no home zone and are not listed.

Places of worship

Suburb pages list places mapped in OpenStreetMap as places of worship (amenity=place_of_worship), © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL: how many lie inside the suburb by tradition (the religion tag), and the nearest of each main tradition within 10 km in a straight line from a point inside the suburb. They are listed as facilities for access, not as an indicator of who lives in a suburb, and are not used to compare, rank, match or search suburbs. This table is not part of the site's data downloads. Distances are straight lines from a central point inside the suburb. OpenStreetMap is mapped by volunteers, so places can be missing, closed or placed approximately.

Sources and limits, section by section

Title counts

Counts are of live titles as recorded by LINZ on 30 September 2026, not counts of homes, and a title is not a guarantee about any particular property (check the certificate of title). Ranks and "typical" figures compare a suburb with the suburbs that have a page on this site.

Ranks and comparison words

Ranks on a suburb page, and the "typical suburb" figures, are among the suburbs of the same council that have an indexed page on this site (a few suburbs have a page that search engines are asked to skip, and are left out). Suburbs whose shares print alike are given a joint rank. Comparison words judge the figures as printed: "close to" is within about 7% of the other figure, "slightly above" or "slightly below" 7% to 20%, "above" or "below" 20% to 50%, and "well above" or "well below" more than that, with "about N times" worked out from the printed pair. Where two small figures are under the page's minimum gap apart but far apart in proportion, the sentence gives the direction only. Climate compares rain on the same scale and temperature by a difference of 1°C; "about the same" for new titles by year means within 7% of the earlier average; lines about census areas and flats appear only when the figures differ by a stated minimum.

Cross-lease schemes

A scheme is one section held in shares by the owners of the flats on it; each owner leases their own flat (and any garage, carport or area) from the others. Flats are counted from the shares on the titles (1/2, 1/3 …). Garages, carports and exclusive-use areas are those written into the leases. More than one flats plan on record usually means the plan has been redrawn at least once; it is not by itself a sign of a problem. Section sizes are from the titles, not a survey.

A suburb page lists only the scheme figures that differ from the national figure by a quarter or more, largest difference first; the table shows them all.

Unit titles and leasehold

Unit titles and leasehold are counted from LINZ titles and the lease terms written on them. A development is the set of unit titles on one unit plan. Title dates are not build dates and say nothing about any one building. A stated lease term that has ended does not mean the lease has ended: many leases are renewable or have been renewed or varied by a later document. Read the lease, the body corporate records and the LIM before relying on either.

New titles

A new title is created when land is subdivided, a unit-title development is completed, a cross-lease is converted to freehold, or a title is re-issued (for example after sections are combined). New titles show where land is being divided and redeveloped; they are not a count of new homes, and they say nothing about what may be built in future.

Lie of the land

From the LINZ national LiDAR elevation model read on an 8 m grid; slope under a building is the bare ground at the centre of its outline. An 8 m grid smooths short steep banks and retaining walls. Slope describes the terrain only: it is not a measure of ground stability, and says nothing about any one property. 15° is about a 1-in-4 gradient.

Rents

Rents are from MBIE Tenancy Services rental bond data (CC BY 3.0 NZ): rents agreed for new tenancies whose bond was lodged in the quarter, for all dwelling types, not asking rents or the rents of existing tenancies. MBIE reports by 2018 statistical area, so the area names can differ from the census areas. A median is shown only when at least 10 bonds were lodged, and not when it moved more than 25% in a year: in samples this small such a move is more likely a change in the mix of lettings (such as student rooms) in one of the two quarters than a change in rents. MBIE randomly rounds bond counts to multiples of 3. Rents by number of bedrooms are not shown while MBIE's bedroom coding is inconsistent with a year earlier. "The typical suburb" in a council is the middle value among its suburbs with a page on this site.

Schools and hospitals

Distances are straight lines from a central point inside the suburb, not travel distances. Being near a school does not mean being in its zone: check the school's enrolment scheme. Schools are those mapped by LINZ from the Ministry of Education's directory: state, state-integrated and some independent schools; early childhood centres are not included. Public general hospitals are Te Whatu Ora hospitals as listed by LINZ, leaving out birthing units, clinics and specialist women's, children's and mental health hospitals; not every hospital has an emergency department.

2023 Census

Source: Stats NZ, 2023 Census (CC BY 4.0). These figures describe everyone in the area, not just people in cross-lease homes. Stats NZ suppresses small counts (shown as —) and randomly rounds counts to base 3, so shares may not add to exactly 100%. Median income is total household income as reported in the census. Shares are of the people, households or dwellings who answered each question, and are shown only when at least 50 did. Damp and mould are as reported by residents.

A suburb page names up to three measures where its main census area differs most from its council (by a fifth or more).

Public transport

Public transport figures use one representative weekday's timetable from each feed (GTFS, CC BY 4.0). Distances are straight lines from the centre of each title's land, not walking routes, and say nothing about where the services go or how long they take. School buses (GTFS route types 712 and 713) and on-demand services are not counted. A frequent stop has at least 60 departures that day (about one every 15 minutes across the day). Council figures are averages over its suburbs weighted by their titles.

Suburbs like this one

The closest suburbs anywhere in New Zealand by root-mean-square standardised difference over the measures both suburbs have (at least six). "Closest on" names the three measures where the two suburbs are nearest each other. Closeness is arithmetic: it says nothing about which suburb is nicer.

At a glance

Each position compares a suburb's figure with the same figure for the suburbs whose page is listed in search engines and that have it. Figures that exist only for some regions (such as public transport) get no national position. "Typical" is the middle value among those listed suburbs in the same council that have the figure, shown when at least 5 do. Higher or lower is not better or worse.

New titles by year (council pages)

New titles by year count titles still live on the data date, by the month LINZ issued them. A title issued in an earlier year and cancelled since (for example when the land was subdivided again) is not counted, so earlier years read lower than the number issued at the time. A new title is not a new building: it can follow a subdivision, a conversion or a new development. Suburbs that straddle two councils are counted under the first council LINZ lists.

Regions

Region pages group councils into New Zealand's 16 regional areas using the shared Edgefield place list (@edgefield/nz-places): a council is placed by its own name, or else by the region that at least 90% of its suburbs' titles point to; a council placed nowhere is left out. Each council is in one region, so councils that cross a regional boundary (such as Taupō) are counted whole in one. A region gets a page for a title type when at least 15 of its suburbs have 50 or more titles of that type.

Council summaries

Council figures are averages over its suburbs, weighted by their number of titles, and are shown only when suburbs holding at least half the council's titles have the figure. The suburb table on a council page lists suburbs with an indexed page on this site; each suburb's page gives the source and limits of every figure. Climate figures are NASA POWER 2001–2020 averages on a grid of roughly 50 km (public domain): they describe the district, not any suburb.

Which pages exist

A suburb gets its own page only when it has at least 300 live titles and 30 cross-lease titles, so that the page can say something specific. A council gets a page when it has at least 100 cross-lease titles.

How to read the figures

A cross-lease is a way of owning a home on a shared section. Each owner holds an undivided share of the land, together with a lease of their own dwelling and any exclusive-use areas from the other owners. LINZ records these as their own title type, "Cross lease".

Limits

These are counts of titles. A cross-lease flat normally has one title, but a title is not a guarantee about any particular property. Check the certificate of title.
Each title is placed in the suburb or locality that contains the centre of its land. Titles near a boundary can fall either side, and LINZ localities are not the same as census areas.
The register changes as owners convert cross-leases to freehold or unit titles, so real-world changes can lag.

Download

Suburb-level counts (CSV), CC BY 4.0, attribution to LINZ.