ER22B Modelled housing quality and tenure in New Zealand (August 2017)

With wide-scale individual housing inspections being expensive, cost-effective ways are needed to measure housing quality and differences in quality by tenure, demography and housing attributes.

We used nationwide data from CoreLogic and Tenancy Bonds, and 714 Healthy Housing Index inspections, to develop a Modelled Inspection-Derived Condition Score (MIDCS). We assessed the MIDCS as a measure of housing quality or condition and also measured differences in MIDCS by tenure, rental quartile, main centre, census area socio-economic status (NZDep2013) and dwelling size, type and construction era.

The MIDCS:

• was lower in rental than non-rental properties
• was lower in Wellington and Dunedin than in Auckland and Christchurch
• was lower in older than in newer properties
• decreased with increasing socio-economic deprivation
• varied by housing type.

However, the model explained very little of the variation in dwelling condition. Nationwide survey data is needed to better measure broader housing quality.