rents were down on an annual basis<\/a> for the first time in a decade, Trade Me said its data also showed a 1.6 percent drop over a year in the asking price for rental properties on its site.<\/p>\nThat was equal to about $10 a week. Some Wellington rents were back to a level “not seen in years”.<\/p>\n
The median weekly advertised rent was $620 in December, unchanged from the month before.<\/p>\n
“It’s a bit of a steady start to the summer,” Trade Me Property spokesperson Casey Wylde said.<\/p>\n
“After some movement earlier in the year, the national median rent settled at the $620 mark for the second month in a row. While it’s great news for renters’ wallets that prices haven’t spiked, we’re seeing a lot of interest behind the scenes. We’ve had about an 8 percent year-on-year increase in searches in December, so this may not last for too long.”<\/p>\n
Search activity in Gisborne jumped 51 percent year-on-year, with Hawke’s Bay and Taranaki also up 28 and 29 percent respectively.<\/p>\n
Wylde said some people might be looking at what else was available in the market, if they thought they were paying more than market rent.<\/p>\n
“It’s just the same with when people are looking to buy properties as well, you’re always going to have a lot of people that are having a bit of a nosy and then often it’s those passive searchers that end up making a move.”<\/p>\n
She said sometimes people were looking to regions like Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay for a lifestyle change.<\/p>\n
The number of new rental listings coming on to the market dropped by 23 percent compared to November but was still up 4 percent on December 224.<\/p>\n
“We usually see a dip in new listings as people focus on their holidays, but the demand isn’t slowing down,” Wylde said.<\/p>\n
Auckland and Bay of Plenty were the areas with the most expensive rents, both at $650 a week.<\/p>\n
Auckland was down 3 percent on a year earlier and Bay of Plenty was down 1.5 percent compared to November and compared to December 2024.<\/p>\n
Canterbury rents rose 1.8 percent from November to December, to a median $580. Southland was the most affordable at $450 per week, and Wellington was $600 per week which is $50 cheaper than last December.<\/p>\n
“The biggest wins for tenants in P\u014dneke are in the smaller-to-mid-sized homes,” Wylde said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve seen rents for one and two-bedroom properties fall by over 5 percent annually, while three-to-four-bedroom homes have dropped by nearly 7 percent. For families and young professionals in the capital, the cost of living in a rental’s now back to levels we haven’t seen in years.”<\/p>\n
Sign up for Money with Susan Edmunds<\/a>, a weekly newsletter covering all the things that affect how we make, spend and invest money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trade Me says the lower rents may not last for too long. Photo: RNZ Trade Me says rents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-247826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}