The Beijing Summer Olympics opened on August 8, 2008, at 8:08 p.m. This may seem odd to those not familiar with Asian culture and the affinity of the lucky number“۸”. This particular number is deemed lucky because it rhymes with the Chinese word “prosper”. On the contrary, the number “۴” is considered unlucky, as the number rhymes with the Chinese word “death”. The superstitious preference for numbers is considerable in Asian culture and can influence important decision-making, for example some buildings in China have no fourth floor (Kramer and Block, 2008). While numerical superstition is more pronounced in Asia, similar superstitious behaviours are also found in Western countries. For example, it is estimated that as many as 85 per cent of high-rise buildings in the USA do not have public floors designated level 13, a number that is broadly deemed unlucky in that country (Perkins, 2002). Focusing on Auckland, New Zealand, this study uses hedonic price models to investigate whether superstitious beliefs behind lucky and unlucky house numbers affect house prices and whether this effect persists through time. There are three key reasons why Auckland is an ideal case study for studying house price effects of numeric superstition. First, the city features a diverse mix of ethnicities with nearly one-quarter of Aucklanders belonging to Asian ethnic groups as of the 2013 Census and 8.3 per cent of Auckland’s population being ethnic Chinese (Statistics New Zealand, 2014). Second, Auckland has been analysed in the past for numerical superstition by Bourassa and Peng (1999) using earlier data not available to the present study’s authors. As one of the focuses of the present research is to understand how superstitious behaviour by Auckland homebuyers has changed over time, the earlier study’s results offer a helpful indicator of past buyer behaviour. It is important to note that Auckland’s ethnic mix has been transformed since Bourassa and Peng’s analysis of mid-1990s residential sales. Figure 1 presents shares of Auckland ethnic groups based on the past five censuses. Three ethnic groups, Maori, Pacific Islander (Pasifika) and Middle Eastern, Latin American and Africa (MELAA), have maintained fairly stable proportions of Auckland’s ethnic mix, whereas two ethnic groups, European and Asian, have followed equal but opposite trajectories. At the time of the 1991 Census, ethnic Europeans comprised roughly 76 per cent of Auckland’s population, while ethnic Asians accounted for only 6 per cent. However, at the most recent census in 2013, the European share of the population dropped to 60 per cent, while the Asian share rose to 23 per cent. The third reason why Auckland is an ideal case study is availability of detailed property data. A key contribution of the present study is the development and implementation of a novel method to identify subpopulation of homebuyers using proprietor names. This approach is unique in property research and enables insights into the differences between distinct groups of market participants. In the present research, the groups being analysed are ethnic Chinese homebuyers and non-Chinese buyers. Individual data on proprietors were made available to the authors for Auckland residential sales transactions but were not accessible for other housing markets.