Tenants will be celebrating but landlords won't be so happy with the latest rental housing figures from Trade Me Property, which show rents were declining or static over winter while the number of properties being advertised for rent has just hit a record high.
The number of properties listed for rent on Trade Me last month was the highest ever for the month of September and up 31% compared to September last year.
The volume of rental listings last month was also up 7% compared to pre-pandemic levels in September 2019.
The biggest increase was in Auckland where rental listings were up 51% compared to September last year, followed by Wellington with a 49% increase.
Going against the trend, listings were down compared to September last year in Canterbury -2%, Southland -4%, Nelson/Tasman -9% and Otago -9%.
However while the supply of rental properties is growing overall, rents are mostly flat or falling.
The national median asking rent for properties advertised on Trade Me was $575 a week in September, down $5 a week compared to August, and $10 a week below the record of $580 set in April.
However the national median rent was still up 7.5% compared to September last year, although there are significant regional variations.
In Auckland, the country's largest rental market by far, the median asking rent has been unchanged at $600 a week for the the six months to September and is up just 0.8% compared to September last year. Median asking rents were unchanged compared to a year ago in Wellington and Hawke's Bay.
For all areas outside of Auckland the median asking rent was up 10% compared to September last year, with the biggest annual increases occurring in Southland 13.5%, Otago 10%, Canterbury 8.7%, Manawatu/Whanganui 8.7% and Taranaki 8% (see chart below for the full regional figures).
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92 Comments
“The rental market seems weak”… from who’s perspective? I’d say it’s strong.. for renters
Yes, annual inflation on rental was 4.6%.
The number of rentals has actually dropped a lot. A week ago was below 5k in Auckland and has popped to just over.
...But you never know, new builds will flood in to the rental pool in droves. With thousands of extra rentals and falling demand as everyone exits the city (though housemouse loves the city and its hinterland), rents could conceivably go through the floor. Not likely but its possible
Certainly is a great hinterland HW2. Don’t you think? Hauraki Gulf and islands, West Coast Beaches, Hibiscus Coast.
That's true its very nice... in some parts. Other parts are a heaving mass that seizes up. I am there every week spending money and helping the economy remain viable. Hopefully you get your wet dreams of low rents, low house prices and high wages.
Bit crude isn’t that? Back on the booze again?
I can understand the need to get to Auckland regularly given Hamilton is such a hell hole.
.
You've heard the saying those who live in a terrace house should not throw stones. So if I were you I wouldn't start talking about hell holes
This is a good news story.
Agree. Very good news!
It's not surprising. Auckland is an increasingly undesirable place to live and many parts now feel like a different country.
Those that don't need to work there are getting out.
Quite a biased statement.
If you have children and want them to get good education and have a go & develop a variety of skills there is no better place like Auckland.
We pondered building up North but schooling and the huge choice of after school activities & the large community made us stay.
Yes there’s a lot of good things about Auckland. I would include in that public schooling which In my view is generally better than Aus
On a higher level, our universities are ranked pretty low when comparing to the ones in Aust !
Ranking is generally not reflective of the quality of the education these days, no matter how much they like to tell you it is. There are renowned experts who have studied and worked in the highest ranked universities in the US that say they found them no better and often worse than so called lesser institutions. They say that most professors teach via wrote ideology, not using a broad knowledge base. They churn out people with tunnel vision, minimal initiate and a deep entitlement mentality.
Goes to explain why so many of our elite classes are so disconnected from reality and unable to change course.
I have not seen any evidence to suggest that the public school system in New Zealand is churning out students with notably better:
- Reading and language proficiency
- Mathematics and numeracy proficiency
- Scientific knowledge and understanding
I would also argue that New Zealand now has an emphasis on teaching literacy in Manglish instead of English.
I can only go by my own personal experience. Our son went to the so called best public high school in Adelaide for two years, very underwhelming. Catholic high schools were more than 20k per year. Our daughter goes to Baradene, 5k per year, really excellent school.
Would it be a fair to suggest that Baradene College of the Sacred Heart is actually not reflective of the general public education system in New Zealand?
My son went to Auckland Boys Grammar for about 18 months before we moved to Aust. Hugely over-rated school, only the ones that will do well there are those at the top and bottom ends.
How was the Aus school?
Initially went to catholic school in Brisbane and did really well there with sport and music. Then got into Queensland Academies for Science Math and Tech (public school). He's now studying Med at UNSW (got accepted into Otago and Auckland med school but decided to go to Sydney instead)
Can't praise enough about the schooling system here. Had he stayed in AGS he'd be just another average kid!
I guess education is a very personal experience and heavily reliant on the needs of the child.
I actually think there's a fundamental issue in parents' outsourcing the raising of their kids to a school.
They're ok for churning out wage earners though.
I have a couple of friends who teach in posh private schools in Auckland. Said that, sadly, some of the kids really suffer from a lack of parental involvement. They have very much outsourced the raising of their kids. It is to the detriment of their kids' educational achievement, even if the parents are earning a lot of money and have their kids in a big, beautiful house.
I.e. not just the domain of those struggling for money, but all across the spectrum.
Out of interest how much were the Catholic school fees per annum? They generally seem much higher in Aus
Yes.
But my point still stands - 5k per annum compared to 20k in Aus.
Also, from what I have heard from friends, the better public schools in Auckland sound better than the better public schools in Aus cities. Certainly better than the so called best public school my son attended in Adelaide.
Brock, I hope you find happiness in Queensland. I am sure that you will also find that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
Thanks. See how it goes for a few years and then assess what comes next.
Thats because 40% of parents send their kids to private or independent schools in Australia. Once they get rid of streaming in NZ, the performance of NZ public schools will drop even further.
I guess it's horses for courses.
I have two children. Both attend/attended a private or state-integrated school waaaay out here in the boondocks of Hawkes Bay. My son would have had his operatic debut at 14 years old if not for the Covid fiasco, and last week he was at a workshop in Christchurch for a national band. He's maintaining an "excellence" level for NCEA.
They both play multiple instruments, compose and arrange music, speak several languages, have interests in engineering, veterinary science, woodwork and so on, and play Winter and Summer sports. After school they enjoy sunshine and fresh air on a property the size of a large Auckland subdivision, with however many friends are able to come around. Both of them can drive a tractor, and this Summer I might let them drive the digger too. We have an old car in which they can practice driving around the property. Both are able to back a trailer.
I'm struggling to see what more Auckland could offer them, although they enjoyed visiting Remuera, Parnell and Devonport.
Disclaimer: I spent years living in Auckland, as a child and as a young adult. My education suffered while I was there.
Fantastic place Auckland..
I generally like it. It’s got a nice climate and a great hinterland. It’s got a reasonable amount of culture ( I highly recommend the Kahlo exhibition). It’s got a very good food culture.
downsides include very high cost of living and bad transport ( public transport and roads)
Currently in Auckland, favourite night time activity for everyone, especially the active healthy young ones is ram-raid..
"family that ram-raids together, stays together.."
No crime in Brizzie?
They're being sent back here after Aussie raised them to be crims.
bingo!
National all set for blast off with more immigration and removal of the new tax.
Mr Luxon has to protect his portfolio.
Is that you TA.. AC ?? Stop shilling the housing market..
..we all know historically house prices boom under Labour.
I think it will be difficult to have more immigration than under the current Labour Govt, who has just approved 200,000 permanent residency visas, and have opened up the borders to an unlimited number of new immigrants with no thought to where they will all live or how they will get to work or what happens if they get sick and need a hospital bed. 2500 visas for elderly people being handed out alone. So when one million of them turn up on the doorstep dont go complaining that you cant find a house to rent, and dont go blaming National.
This is the age of Shrinkflation. They will integrate and pay $600pw to live in garages, tents and caravans like the rest of us. All problems have solutions.
Meanwhile, working Kiwis will fund their WFF, emergency benefits, and healthcare for the aged. All to help suppress wages and inflate rents.
K.W. I understand those 200,000 permanent residency visas are going to people who already live here so unlikely to have much impact on housing or jobs.
Up 51%, wow.
And just wait till thousands of townhouses are completed and are available for rent before Xmas.
Block of five new townhouses sat for sale for months on Milton Street in Christchurch. Prices ranged from high 500s to high 700s. For sale signs gone. They are all still empty and now there is a for rent sign on the fence.
Maybe somebody purchased them to rent out?
Losing money on the $500 a week rent asking price unless you had $$$$$$ sitting in the bank to buy outright.
excellent news --- As well as the new build -- many of those properties that have sat empty for the last few years making $2000 a week + in capital gains are also landing back on teh market as the gains evaporate and the cost increase!
Now as long as we don't open th immigration floodgates again .....
They will...both Natbour parties...but the issue might be that migration isn't necessarily inward to a rip-off location when economic hard times are hitting. Ireland found that too. There might be more attractive locations to skilled folk from developing countries, than a place with stratospheric housing costs and exploitative labour conditions.
spot on - -dep of Corrections usually recruit 500-800 staff from overseas each year -- normally South Africa and the UK are the big targets -- Last three years under 50 -- hence our prisons are in 23 hr lock downs and have no in face visits in many locations -- with no sign of any improvement -- essentially we have gone from being one of the top destinations globally alongside Canada for high quality professionals - to basket case in just over 3 years ! buggered comes to mind
It's the culmination of our decades-long policy of handing out free money to land owners while devaluing work. Ultimately makes society untenable for many necessary workers.
This is exactly what happened in Ireland during their crash. Houses that had been sitting empty were put into the rental market, because their owners were no longer making big capital gains.
So can they all move out of the Rotorua motels now?
The unspoken fact is that they are in these because they have a history of not paying and wrecking properties. So they will still be un-houseable.
For this reason there will always be a need for the state to provide housing of last resort.
Some great State housing estates...Kaitoke, Waikeria, Poremoremo and the upmarket Ohura.
Some of the new taxpayer-subsidised private minimum security ones too, the likes of Summerset and Ryman.
It's pretty much free accommodation for them and a winning lotto ticket for motel owners.
Many will only leave if pushed, even then it might take 5 police officers and a whip.
Many don't vote and it's a safe bet the ones that do.. vote Labour!
Rotorua has played stupid communist games and now weeps over their prizes.
A lot of them are overseas investors who end up putting their property on rent while they flee back to overseas thinking they can ride out the crash, then return and pocket the gains, they might have to wait a bit longer this time around.
For several years now lots of overseas buyers have been selling their properties and far fewer have been buying.
They've lost a lot of money in recent times, in foreign currency terms.
Landlords have had their day for a multitude of reasons. Tenants are about to have theirs. Its a good time to be a renter on account of choice and therefore increased bargaining power. Those who live beneath their means saving today will be rewarded tomorrow. They will come armed with decent sized deposits to put down on even cheaper houses. In the interim, sitting on such deposits provides financial independence and emotional security. Speculator/Landlords who say they bought in at the right time are now out there Spruiking "you cannot time the market" Recent events is clear enough evidence this advice is both self serving and false.
Its a time to celebrate🥳🎈
Seems odd that this would be happening right as the loss of interest deductibility starts to take effect.
Criticism of the policy was that it would disincentivise providing rentals.
Lesser of two perceived evils. Hope the decline in property values is "transitory!" and rent or swallow a dead rat now and sell for less than the peak.
Opting to rent shows a stubborn refusal to accept that the party may be over. Those doubling down on the capital gains gamble deserve what they get if the bubble bursts.
Turns out landlord costs don't get passed onto renters, after all.
Rents follow incomes, because land ownership has monopoly properties. Landlords extract as much rent as their tenants can bear, unrelated to landlord costs.
Greedy vampire squids, every one of them.
Rents follow incomes
and incomes are .....? so rents before too long will ...?
Adjusting for inflation, incomes are dropping.
I would assume rents are due to come down in that case?
Adjusting for inflation, quite possibly, yes.
We don’t live in a binary world. Landlords as well renters are made up of a large diverse group.
some landlords will always charge as much as possible. Others after covering costs will choose to under rent their properties. Especially if they have nice tenants.
New build rentals are exempt though
It was concern trolling by landlords and property spruikers
But I thought that there was going to be a mass exodus of investors from the rental market, driven by the 'iniquitous' tax changes of the government?
So appalling were they that the very first policy statement from ( 7 house)Luxon was to assure these hard-pressed investors that they would 'be gone by lunchtime' when he is PM.
Interesting...talked to a couple of RE agents a couple of weeks ago, they said that folks are selling up their homes and going renting and are planning to sit it out until the market calms down and prices are lower. If they can sell, that is.
I call BS on what the REA's have told you. That's a pretend friend they're talking about.
The type of thinking that is required to monetise your way of life by rolling it into a house and land package just reaks of REA logic, not those that value neighbours, friends, and community. This is a REA's teenage fantasy.
I have friends in Northland who did that recently.
No one told them about the ‘Open Bank Resolution’ scheme then???
"This essentially forces depositors to bear losses in a bank failure by having some of their money taken to recapitalise the bank and get it open for business again quickly (under statutory management"
One reason why I am reluctant to stay out of the housing market. Can't confiscate the spare room.
People thinking they're "clever" by trying to short the housing market. The proceeds from their sale were likely from a mortgage on the other side of the ledger. If the OBR event does eventuate, I'm pretty sure the bank could in theory follow the money and apply an "ethics" test case.
E.g. $200k in the bank from regular salary savings vs $200k capital gains from a house sale. If they had to chose, they may go after the $200k CG over the $200k of real savings. Imagine the media beat up if someone lost a portion of their hard earned savings. The beat up would a lot less if someone lost a portion of housing "profits".
I guess all the 'landlord haters' think Kianga Ora can/could do a better job providing the 540,000 rental properties that the private sector have invested in to provide housing to tenants.
Yeah just kick those greedy landlords in the guts for investing in roofs over peoples heads. How dare they!
Heck the government provides the luxury of motel accomodation to its most in need so why cant those landlords also offer an equivalent 'luxury' accomodation for the same (free) price?
These days you have to be homeless to be able to 'afford' to live in a motel... oh that's right, they are not staying there for free... our taxes are paying for them.
I guess thats those greedy landlords fault as well for charging such high rents forcing people to be homeless. Heck why can't they just provide roofs over peoples heads at a loss like the government does?
It's a bit much to have such victim mentality after having received so much of a leg-up from previous generations who actually funded a supply of affordable housing.
I mean, it takes a lot of work to put your name on the title of an existing property and take out a mortgage. I would say Kainga Ora would do a better job, because they're not hamstrung by financial resources or the need to turn a profit like our private slumlords.
Whether the property is in private or public hands, doesn't change the number of tradespeople available to maintain the property.
I would say Kainga Ora would do a better job, because they're not hamstrung by financial resources
Kainga Ora had to give themselves many years more than the private sector to bring their properties up to healthy homes standards. Because they lack the resources.
End of the day building a new property is expensive and retrofitting an old one isn't cheap either, the government would rather the private sector make the huge capital outlay and lease it off them.
That's because the private sector of tradespeople wouldn't be able to manage the workload in such a short time. Do you think Kainga Ora have their own internally hired plumbers, gibstoppers and carpenters? No, they would employ the private sector.
Yes it's not ideal that the private sector have a shorter time frame, but it just is what it is. The alternative would be to what? Stretch out health homes requirements to 10 years and watch everyone in the private sector diddle about for 9.5 years?
Kainga Ora had to give themselves many years more than the private sector to bring their properties up to healthy homes standards.
Still occasionally repeated and still misrepresenting the facts.
Taxpayers fund landlords through accommodation supplements. Without them, rents would be much lower, and by proxy house prices too.
Most landlords jack rent up maximum amount every chance they get and make tenants repair their substandard homes.
In Auckland, the country's largest rental market by far, the median asking rent has been unchanged at $600 a week for the the six months to September and is up just 0.8% compared to September last year. Median asking rents were unchanged compared to a year ago in Wellington and Hawke's Bay.
So ,the common Trope of property investors "putting the rent up to cover costs", is really not playing out.Can only get worse as Tenants budgets are squeezed by inflation.
Yip. In those locations rents have pretty much reduced in price by 7% over the last year. Compared to inflation they will likely come down more. Renters should be very happy.
Its only because of the negative population growth that Auckland and Wellington are experiencing, along with the 200,000 brand new permanent residents suddenly being legally able to buy houses instead of having to rent them.
In addition, existing rents are far cheaper than the rents being offered on new tenancies due to the rent freeze effect disincentivising renters to move. This too will change as the rent increases start to flow through from October onwards like they have in the last 2 years.
Lastly the borders are open again, and an unlimited number of immigrants are now able to move to New Zealand, along with all the international students returning in the new year. Give it six months, and the current rental glut will become a tight squeeze.
Didn't take long to go from a housing shortage to an oversupply, what was everyone worried about.
There is nothing that a vampire squid loves more than a tight squeeze.
Last I heard we were experiencing a net migration loss.
Auckland rental listings up 51% from a period when all of Auckland was in a LOCKDOWN. Well, imagine that! When are we going to get over the complete stupidity of comparing today's normal with lockdown periods?
Wouldn't it be lovely if this is the beginning of the end of the rentier class that's grown here and the end of 'people farming'.
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