Suburbs in Palmerston North City: rents, census and property titles

LINZ recorded 34,553 live titles in Palmerston North City on 30 September 2026: 90% freehold, then cross-lease at 5.7%. Its 1,973 cross-lease titles (5.7%) are well below the national share of 8.7%.

Palmerston North City cross-lease titles

Cross-lease titles: 1,973
Share of live titles: 5.7%
Live titles in total: 34,553
New Zealand share: 8.7%
Suburbs with 30+ cross-lease titles: 11

2026-09-30 https://data.linz.govt.nz/layer/50804-nz-property-titles/

Title mix in Palmerston North City

Title type	Live titles	Share
Freehold	31,252	90.4%
Cross lease	1,973	5.7%
Unit title	977	2.8%
Leasehold	153	0.4%
Other record types	198	0.6%
Total	34,553	100%

Counts are titles, not homes. Sources and limits

How cross-leases in Palmerston North City are set up

Separate exclusive-use areas are less common (1% of schemes, against 5% nationally).

More schemes have four or more flats on one section (20%, against 11% nationally), up to 24.

Fewer leases include a garage (17% of schemes, against 28% nationally).

Scheme structure	Palmerston North City	New Zealand
Cross-lease schemes (shared sections)	734	87,651
Two-flat schemes	65.7%	76.2%
Three-flat schemes	13.8%	12.2%
Four or more flats	20.2%	11.4%
Typical section size (from the titles, not a survey)	809 m²	908 m²
Typical land per flat	348 m²	408 m²
Schemes with a garage written into a lease	16.8%	28.4%
Schemes with a carport in a lease	12.8%	13.3%
Schemes with a separate exclusive-use area	1.2%	4.5%
Schemes referring to more than one flats plan (usually redrawn; not by itself a problem)	23.7%	35.6%
Median year of earliest current title	1985	1988
Two-flat schemes on 700 m² or more	292	54,978

Sources and limits

Among suburbs with at least 300 live and 30 cross-lease titles, the highest cross-lease shares in Palmerston North City are in Cloverlea (13.8%), Palmerston North (10.0%), West End (9.4%), Roslyn (7.1%), Terrace End (6.7%).

Suburbs in Palmerston North City by cross-lease share

Suburb	Cross-lease titles	Live titles	Share
Cloverlea	120	869	13.8%
Palmerston North	448	4,467	10.0%
West End	194	2,063	9.4%
Roslyn	194	2,733	7.1%
Terrace End	131	1,948	6.7%
Milson	167	2,750	6.1%
Takaro	122	2,290	5.3%
Kelvin Grove	167	3,555	4.7%
Hokowhitu	184	4,017	4.6%
Awapuni	134	3,244	4.1%
Highbury	85	2,202	3.9%

Palmerston North City at a glance

8% of titles in Palmerston North City's suburbs were first issued since 2020, well below New Zealand (12%). The wider district is about as wet as the national average for homes (950 mm of rain a year, against 1,000 mm) and cooler than it (12.3°C, against 13.5°C), on NASA POWER's ~50 km grid.

A dash means the figure is not available for that suburb.
Suburb	Cross-lease share of titles	Median weekly rent, new tenancies	Titles first issued since 2020	Median age	Homes with a heat pump	Median slope under buildings	Typical distance to the coast
Cloverlea	13.8%	$565	2.4%	35.7	66.1%	0.8°	30.5 km
Palmerston North	10.0%	$425	6.3%	29.6	74.3%	0.7°	32.8 km
West End	9.4%	$520	5.0%	32.7	67.0%	0.7°	32.2 km
Roslyn	7.1%	$568	7.5%	34.9	61.9%	0.7°	34.4 km
Terrace End	6.7%	$600	7.1%	35.5	62.3%	0.7°	34.8 km
Milson	6.1%	$588	8.2%	33.4	68.7%	0.7°	32.5 km
Takaro	5.3%	$535	9.6%	32.8	64.7%	0.7°	31.2 km
Kelvin Grove	4.7%	$735	12.7%	40.9	76.4%	0.8°	36.3 km
Hokowhitu	4.6%	$595	7.2%	45	63.8%	0.8°	34.2 km
Awapuni	4.1%	$600	5.4%	37.4	62.6%	0.7°	30.7 km
Highbury	3.9%	$480	4.5%	31.2	65.6%	0.7°	30.1 km

Sources and limits

Compare suburbs

New titles by year in Palmerston North City

2025 brought 348 titles still live, fewer than the 5-year average before it (423), against a peak of 470 in 2022.

Year issued	All new titles	Freehold	Unit titles	Cross-lease	Leasehold	Other
2020	452	439	7	4	1	1
2021	438	424	9	2	3	0
2022	470	453	9	3	4	1
2023	352	339	10	0	2	1
2024	403	374	22	0	2	5
2025	348	271	65	0	5	7
2026 (Jan–Sep)	270	257	3	5	4	1

Sources and limits

Cross-lease titles in Palmerston North City, by suburb

Unit titles in Palmerston North City, by suburb

Palmerston North City at the 2023 Census

Measure	Palmerston North City 2023 Census
Usual residents	87,090
Change since 2018	+2.9%
Change since 2013	+8.8%
Median age	35.7
Households	31,497
Own or part-own their home (including family trusts)	64.1%
Not owned and not in a family trust (mostly renting)	35.9%
Median household income	$90,600
Median weekly rent, renting households	$400
Dwellings unoccupied on census night	6.6%
Ages
Under 15	19.4%
15 to 29	22.3%
30 to 64	42.6%
65 and over	15.7%
Where people came from
Born overseas	22.0%
Of those born overseas, arrived in the last 5 years	23.8%
Lived elsewhere in New Zealand 5 years ago (of all residents, including children born since)	45.7%
Lived overseas 5 years ago (of all residents)	3.7%
Moved here in the last year (of all residents)	20.2%
Work and study (people 15 and over)
Bachelor degree or higher	25.8%
Employed full-time	51.1%
Unemployed (share of everyone 15 and over, not the unemployment rate)	3.1%
Managers and professionals (of those employed)	41.2%
Median personal income	$40,800
Getting to work (of those employed)
Work from home	12.6%
Car, truck or van	76.9%
Bus, train or ferry	1.4%
Walk or cycle	7.7%
Households and families
One-person households	24.3%
Average people per household	2.6
Households with no motor vehicle	6.8%
Crowded households (need one or more extra bedrooms)	4.9%
Couples with children (of families)	41.5%
Couples without children	40.3%
One-parent families	18.2%
Homes
Separate (stand-alone) houses	82.6%
Average bedrooms	3.1
Heated with a heat pump	64.9%
Damp, always or sometimes	17.6%
Mould over A4 size, always or sometimes	13.4%

Sources and limits