QuickStats About Housing

An occupied private dwelling accommodates a person or a group of people. It is not usually available for public use.

• There were 1,471,749 occupied private dwellings on census night in 2006.
• The number of occupied private dwellings has increased steadily since the 1996 Census, up 6.5 percent between 1996 and 2001 and up 8.2 percent between 2001 and 2006.
• Most occupied private dwellings were separate houses, with 1,134,369 dwellings (81.2 percent) in that category. The number of separate houses has increased by 10.1 percent or 104,292 from 2001, but there were marked differences between areas. Of the regional council areas, the Southland Region had the highest proportion of separate houses at 91.3 percent, and Wellington Region had the lowest at 75.1 percent.
• The number of dwellings joined to another dwelling increased significantly between 2001 and 2006, up 20.1 percent (42,336 dwellings) since 2001. This type of dwelling includes flats, units, townhouses, apartments or houses joined together (dwellings can either be joined horizontally or vertically). Of the regional council areas, Wellington Region had the highest proportion of dwellings joined to other dwellings, at 24.6 percent, closely followed by the Auckland Region at 23.9 percent. The Tasman and the Southland regions had the lowest proportions, both at 8.1 percent.
• Of the territorial authorities, Auckland City had the highest proportion of dwellings joined to other dwellings, at 37.6 percent, closely followed by Wellington City, at 35.6 percent.
• Just over three-quarters (76.7 percent) of separate houses were one storey and approximately one-quarter (23.3 percent) were two or more storeys.
• Approximately one-third (32.9) of joined dwellings were part of buildings that had two or three storeys and 6.5 percent were part of buildings that had four or more storeys.