Trend of rising rents continue

Just released April rental statistics show that New Zealand rental prices have continued to grow over the past year.

In order to remove monthly variations, the NZ Property Investors' Federation averages three months of rental prices for the year ended April 2018 and compares it to the same period in 2017.

Overall, rental prices are up 4.4% to $433 per week. This is about the same price rise compared to the year ended April 2017 when rents rose by 4.2%.

The greater Wellington area continued to have the largest rent increases, with rental prices rising 16.3% in Porirua, 13.5% in Lower Hutt, 8.3% in Upper Hutt and 5% in Wellington Central.

Earlier this year these Wellington rental price increases led the Wellington Students Association to believe that prices were increasing because of increases to student allowances. However this has been investigated and refuted by Minister of Housing, Phil Twyford.

Napier saw the third highest rental price rises at 8.4% to $387pw.

Auckland rental increases ranged from 2.5% in Auckland Central to 6.6% on the North Shore.

Christchurch rents over the last year increased 3.8% in March and increased again by 1.5% in the year to April. While these increases are lower than the national average, they are the first increases since 2014 and appear to show that rental price falls over the last few years have bottomed out.

"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."

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. Look under the menu heading resources for the rental price calculator.

A table of rental price increases for the 17 main regions is shown below.

% increase Rent PW
North Shore 6.6% $ 583
Waitakere 4.5% $ 500
Auckland 2.5% $ 555
Manukau 3.0% $ 492
Papakura 4.5% $ 476
Hamilton 3.4% $ 379
Tauranga 5.7% $ 430
Napier 8.4% $ 387
Palmerston North 1.5% $ 302
Upper Hutt 8.3% $ 362
Hutt Valley 13.5% $ 406
Porirua 16.3% $ 409
Wellington 5.0% $ 507
Nelson 6.7% $ 384
Christchurch 1.5% $ 382
Dunedin 7.7% $ 325
Invercargill 6.8% $ 260

New Zealand 4.4% $ 433

ENDS

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