RENTAL SQUEEZE
THE MEDIAN rent for a threebedroom home increased by 5.7 per cent in 2012, or by around $20 a week. However, tenants in parts of Christchurch are paying $50 a week more than they were a year ago, according to the latest figures from the REINZ.
Nationally, median rents increased by $20 week for both two-bedroom homes (up from $300 a week in December 2011 to $320 last month) and threebedroom homes (up from $350 a week to $370).
Nut those increases may not be good news for prospective landlords because house prices have been increasing even more, putting a squeeze on rental yields (see table).
There were significant differences around the country with rents soaring in Christchurch, weakening in Wellington and ending the year on a mixed note in Auckland.
Median rents in many parts of Christchurch rose by $50 or more in 2012 (refer table, page 4), as the city struggled to cope with a loss of homes due to earthquake damage and rising demand for housing from workers moving to the city for rebuilding work (see page 12).
The biggest rent increase was in the Addington/Hoon Hay area where the median rent for a threebedroom home increased from $340 a week to $395 in 2012.
That was closely followed by Riccarton where the median rent for a two-bedroom dwelling rose by $53 from $277 to $330 a week.
But in the capital, seven of Wellington’s 11 rental districts posted declines. The biggest drop was in Miramar where the median rent for three-bedroom homes dropped by $50, from $540 to $490 a week, followed by Karori/ Kelburn where rents on twobedroom dwellings were down by $35 a week.
In Auckland, the country’s largest rental property market by far, the picture was patchy at year’s end.
Rents declined in the highly desirable inner city suburbs of Herne Bay, Ponsonby, Grey Lynn and Westmere and on most of the North Shore, while most other suburbs showed rental increases.
The biggest rises were in a cluster of suburbs a few kilometres from the CBD – Mt Albert, Sandringham, Balmoral and Mt Roskill – where median rents were up $30 or more on December 2011.
More modest rental increases of about $10 a week were posted in the west and south of the city where there is a high concentration of rental properties, and there were more substantial rises of $20 to $30 a week in the eastern suburbs.
There was also a large and unexpected drop in the number of