Fears of a student exodus
With only weeks to go before classes start, students are struggling to find flats in higher numbers than ever before, with one advocate saying ‘‘students will leave Wellington’’ if the rental shortage isn’t addressed.
Stuff spoke to dozens of students who had been trying to find accommodation for months, sometimes competing with as many as 60 other prospective tenants at a single viewing.
Third-year accounting student Jayden Yanko, 20, was searching for a three-bedroom property with two friends and was resigned to the fact that he might not find one before classes started on February 22.
‘‘It’s not the go – it sucks,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve offered to pay $50 more than the asking price and still had no success, even in the backwaters of Karori.’’
Yanko had viewed more than 20 flats over the last month, with none of his applications even proceeding to reference checks.
If he didn’t find a flat in the next two weeks, he would live with his parents in Whitby and commute 40 minutes into Victoria University each day.
Drama student Nomuna Amarbat, 20, had been looking for a flat with a group of friends since October before finally signing the lease on a four-bedroom rental in Hataitai earlier this week.
Attending flat viewings with around 60 other people was the norm, she said. ‘‘I had reached my breaking point.’’
’’The ratio of available flats to the number of people looking is incredibly unbalanced. We would see the same people at every viewing: ‘oh, there they go again’.’’
Amarbat said there was a power imbalance between tenants and landlords, who knew students would pay ‘‘whatever price is offered due to the shortage of reasonable, living situations’’.
Stuff spoke to another student – who wished to remain anonymous for fear of further jeopardising his renting prospects – whose applications were being turned down due to a bad reference from a landlord. He eventually contacted that former landlord and learned they had mistaken him for a different tenant.
Renters United spokesperson Geordie Rogers said the situation was so desperate that students were now signing themselves blind onto leases.
‘‘We’re seeing students just signing up for a flat without even viewing it first,’’ he said.
Renters United advocates often attended open viewings in order to give students advice.
‘‘One of the flat viewings we were at last weekend looked very normal on the listing. But when people were coming out, and talking to us, they said the property wasn’t wellmaintained, there was the smell of cigarettes, rubbish that hadn’t been taken out, damage to one of the walls that hadn’t been shown in the photos.’’
Substandard rentals – such as one Jessie St flat which has been compared to a ‘‘dungeon’’ – were not ‘‘anomalies’’ because students were desperate and would take whatever they could find.
Rogers said rents should be frozen until the Government figured out solutions that would improve supply.
’’There’s a massive strain on supply in the market at the moment and we can definitely see that in data that’s come out recently,’’ he said.
According to Trade Me Property, the Wellington City average median weekly rent was $620 in December – a record high – up three per cent from December 2019. The most popular rental property in the country during December was a twobedroom apartment in Karori that had 91 inquiries in the first two days on-site.
Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association president Michael Turnbull said those figures lined up with stories he heard from students.
’’It’s gotten worse every year, but this year is particularly hard,’’ he said.
‘‘Something has to be done by both local and central government, otherwise Wellington will lose its student population.
‘‘If we lose students who often contribute to the arts – who contribute to all sorts of external festivals and events – then we’re going to lose the vibrancy of the city with it. It will destroy the culture of the city. And we’re probably not going to be the ‘coolest little Capital’ any more.’’
Students from poorer backgrounds or migrant communities were worst affected by rising rent prices, he said. Students who didn’t have the ‘‘financial safety net of their parent’s income’’ were effectively being barred from continuing their studies.
Turnbull had heard stories of students moving to Christchurch because rent was ‘‘so much cheaper down there’’.
As of December last year, the average median weekly rent in Christchurch was $530, $190 cheaper than Wellington city.