Rental squeeze

Continued from page 1 new tenancies signed in December, although opinions are divided on what that could signal for the rental market.

The REINZ figures show that 5769 dwellings were let in December, a 23 per cent decline from the 7468 new lettings in December 2011.

Trade Me’s head of property Brendon Skipper said there had also been a significant increase in the number of properties being listed for rent on the Trade Me website while the number of prospective tenants searching for homes had dropped.

In the three months to December, the number of rental property listings was up 8 per cent compared with the same quarter of 2011, while the number of prospective tenants searching for rental properties was down 5 per cent.

In Manukau the number of listings was up 24 per cent on the previous year and on the North Shore listings were up 15 cent.

Hamilton and Wellington also recorded double digit increases in the number of listings.

In Christchurch the situation was reversed, with the number of listings down 18 per cent on the previous year while the number of tenants searching the website for homes was up 22 per cent.

That could suggest that the demand/supply pendulum for rental properties outside of Christchurch was swinging back in favour of tenants and the days of big rental increases may be coming to an end. Nationally, the asking rents on Trade Me were only up 1 per cent (excluding Christchurch where they were up 26 per cent) compared with the fourth quarter of 2011.

Skipper believed many renters may have been taking advantage of low interest rates to buy their own homes and move out of the rental market. That would also have helped push up house prices, he said.

Peter Thompson, a director of Auckland’s largest real estate agency Barfoot & Thompson, said there was a good match between supply and demand of rental properties at the moment.

‘‘Traditionally January is our busiest month [for rentals] and what I’ve heard around the traps is that it’s no exception this year. A lot of inquiry and activity is happening in the market. There’s plenty of supply at the moment but that will be snapped up relatively quickly,’’ he said.

However he also believed there were signs that rent increases