Rental prices continue to rise

“There have been so many cost and regulatory increases over the last few years that it isn’t a surprise that rental prices are increasing as they are” said NZPIF Executive Officer Andrew King. “Unfortunately the situation looks likely to continue.”

In order to remove monthly variations, the NZ Property Investors’ Federation has averaged three months of rental prices for the year ended March 2018 and compared this to the same period in 2017.

Overall, rental prices are up 6.1% to $433 per week. This is a higher price rise than during the last two years when rental prices increased 3.4% in the year to March 2017 and 3% in the year to March 2016.

Hutt Valley had the largest increase at 17.1% to $413pw. However this area can be quite volatile due to low numbers of new rentals. Porirua was next with an 11.6% increase to $407pw, although Porirua statistics can also be quite volatile. Wellington Central rents increased by 6.8% showing that the region overall had the highest rental price increases.

Nelson saw the third highest rental price rises at 9.2% to $382.

Auckland rental increases ranged from 4.2% in Waitakere to 5.2% on the North Shore.

Twelve of the 17 main areas had rental price increases below the national average, indicating that rental price increases in the regions are growing quite strongly.

In Christchurch, rental price falls over the last few years appear to have bottomed out. While the 3.8% increase in Christchurch rental prices to $386 is lower than the national average, it is the first time that rental prices have shown an increase since 2014.

People can calculate the market rental price for their rental property at www.nzpif.org.nz, which also graphs how rents have changed over the last 12 years.