Rental hunt creates TikTok star
Posts reveal the difficulties facing prospective tenants looking for homes in a ‘super competitive’ market
Some families are waiting a year or longer to find rentals as demand soars in Auckland, yet the tight market is also helping one woman bloom into a TikTok star.
Daisy Pedersen recently took to TikTok to document her journey finding a rental as she and her husband went to 12 viewings and were knocked back four times before eventually finding a home.
More than one million people watched her most popular video.
It joked how her husband would only accept a rental if its driveway is low enough for his beloved Subaru, or “Subi”, to clear the gutter without nasty scrapes and scratches.
Other light-hearted videos touch on what it’s like to have a prospective tenant drop their meth pipe or a creepy older tenant hit on you.
It’s Pedersen’s posts about difficulties facing families and Pacific and Ma¯ori renters that are resonating most deeply.
As a renter and property manager, Pedersen said she is hearing from families in her community who’ve been trying for more than a year to find rentals and who feel they are being racially discriminated against.
Pedersen said even she had felt the need to go to viewings with her white husband.
“I was very conscious of being a brown person,” she said.
“I wanted to increase my chances of getting a rental, so I never went to a viewing without him.”
Pedersen believes her videos are popular because they reflect the mounting pressure on families in the “super competitive” Auckland rental market.
Trade Me’s most recent Rental Price Index found the national median rent had climbed $40 last year to reach a new high of $560 a week in December.
That means tenants now need to fork out an extra $2000 a year in rent compared to the previous year.
Auckland’s median rent, meanwhile, is sitting at a record high $600.
Renter frustration has particularly been growing in Wellington where a number of tales about sub-standard rentals are making headlines.
TVNZ Breakfast reporter Abbey Wakefield recently revealed one Wellington rental hopeful applied for 55 flats before securing an outside shed to sleep in.
It acts as the fifth bedroom in a four-bedroom house, where the bathroom and kitchen are inside.
In Auckland, a ramshackle West Auckland caravan was recently on offer for $285 per week before its advertisement was pulled.
However, while there has traditionally been a shortage of all types of rentals in Auckland, property managers say the Covid pandemic has led to an oversupply of twobedroom rentals.
It is now typically taking 37 days to find new tenants for two-bedroom rentals, compared with just 22 days for three-or-four-bedroom rentals, Mike Atkinson, managing director of Aspire Property Management, said.
“Two-bedroom properties are harder to rent than they used to be — a two-bedroom unit at about $500 a week used to rent straight away.”
He believes the change is because closed international borders have freed up inner-city apartments that would previously have been rented by international students and developers building too many twobedroom apartments.
Real estate agent Tom Rawson, branch manager of Ray White Manukau, agreed.
He said there is a glut of newbuild two-bedroom rentals on the market, whereas three-bedroom homes are in short supply and getting 20-30 rental applicants each.
James Elliott, chief executive of property manager Kitt, pointed to new credit rules forcing some home buyers to rent because they can’t get home loans as a factor pushing up demand for family homes, and tougher government regulations creating a supply shortage as some landlords sell their rentals.
Pedersen, meanwhile, said she and her husband secured a threebedroom home in Otara last month.
They had been given a 90-day notice to move out of their previous rental just before Christmas because the landlord wanted to sell.
Being a renter and working for two property managers, she uses her insights to make her TikTok videos.
And ironically, she said it’s easier for a couple to get a three-bedroom rental than it is for a family.
This is because landlords typically want fewer people in a home because they believe it is less likely to be damaged, she said.
This had made it hard for one of Pedersen’s close relatives, who is a single mum of four. She has been on
Two-bedroom properties are harder to rent than they used to be. Mike Atkinson, managing director of Aspire Property Management
the emergency waiting list and living in a motel for a year.
Part of her trouble is the Government’s Work and Income department caps her rental assistance at the price of three-bedroom homes and yet most three-bedroom landlords won’t accept her family of five.
Other Pacific and Ma¯ori families have contacted Pedersen through TikTok and Instagram to say they have good jobs but also can’t find homes big enough.
Others feel they are being discriminated against as “brown people”.
Pedersen said her two employers do not discriminate.
However, at a previous workplace she had dealt with racist landlords.
Pedersen hopes her TikTok videos can help bring about change through comedy and honesty.
She also gives tips on how other Pacific and Ma¯ori people can get into property management — an important step towards helping end discrimination, she said.