Summary

Residential property developers play a key role in shaping Auckland’s housing and urban environment. To better understand their challenges, motivations, and plans, Auckland Council’s Land Use Research and Evaluation Team conduct developer surveys twice a year. These insights help the council make informed decisions and develop evidence-based policy responses to support housing delivery and ensure a liveable and well-functioning urban environment.

This report presents results from the first round of the Auckland Residential Property Developer Survey.

Over the past year, participating developers largely prioritised housing activity on brownfield sites, with a strong focus on the standalone and townhouse dwelling typologies. Development companies, compared to self-employed developers, demonstrated more capacity to deliver diverse project types.

The results also indicated that developers are still cautious about undertaking future development over the next 12 months. Many, especially self-employed developers, are indicating plans to pause or scale back the current level of project delivery.

Some key barriers to future development activity included infrastructure funding and provision challenges, uncertain market conditions, and regulatory and procedural processes.

On the flip side, developers also expressed optimism about the potential positive impacts of ongoing planning system reforms and lower interest rates.

Overall, development companies tended to hold more negative views on constraints affecting their near-future projects, while self-employed developers showed less certainty about the future.

Auckland Council, January 2026