{"id":376457,"date":"2026-04-12T21:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T21:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/376457\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T21:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T21:49:14","slug":"building-boom-creating-gentrified-suburbs-where-renters-are-disappearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/376457\/","title":{"rendered":"Building boom creating \u2018gentrified\u2019 suburbs where renters are disappearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ruakura in Hamilton had a similarly large increase in owners<\/a>. In 2013, it was 50% renting households, but that dropped to 27.6% by 2023. It went from 84 homes in 2013 to 729 in 2023.<\/p>\n

Wharewaka in Taup\u014d also featured, with the renting population dropped over 10 years<\/a> from 32% to 12.2%, as the number of homes increased from 309 to 639.<\/p>\n

Hobsonville, Auckland, had a renting population drop from 43.8% in 2013 to 24.8%, as the number of homes ballooned from 576 to 4956.<\/p>\n

Simplicity chief economist Shamubeel Eaqub said new developments had changed the character of suburbs<\/a> around the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the people living in those places tend to be owner-occupiers,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re building more homes and more people are getting into home ownership \u2013 I think that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Places like Penrose] have gentrified … the wealthy suburbs are pushing further and further out.<\/p>\n

\u201cM\u0101ngere Bridge, people used to look down on it. Now, it\u2019s a perfectly desirable suburb, great location right next to the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the opposite seemed to be happening in places like Queenstown, where the renting population was growing. Stonefields in Auckland, Lake Hayes Queenstown, and Goodwood Heights and Sunnynook in Auckland had strong increases in the renting population.<\/p>\n

Stonefields went from 12.5% to 28.9% renters.<\/p>\n

Cotality chief economist Kelvin Davidson said loan-to-value rules, which had an exemption that meant people buying new properties did not have to meet the same deposit requirements, had pushed buyers to new builds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose sorts of properties have been in demand from buyers, because \u2013 for example \u2013 they can get around the LVR rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cParticularly when Auckland housing affordability was really stretched, a way to buy a house in Auckland was to get a townhouse, because they\u2019re exempt from LVRs. They\u2019re cheaper, anyway, than standalone houses.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said places like Marshland in Christchurch, where renters dropped from more than 27% to 11.3%, had seen the same effect.<\/p>\n

Davidson said people who bought the new houses may have vacated other rental properties that tenants could move into.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll else equal, the owner-occupier rate has gone up in Penrose,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s potentially because people used to be renting there and then they\u2019ve been able to buy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe houses don\u2019t disappear. Possibly there\u2019s been some people \u2018pushed out\u2019, but those people who pushed them out had to come from somewhere and that\u2019s a house that\u2019s freed up somewhere else. <\/p>\n

\u201cKiwi society, the home ownership dream, all of that, a lot of people would probably view these stats as pretty positive in these suburbs. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe owner-occupier rate has improved and that\u2019s seen as desirable in New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ruakura in Hamilton had a similarly large increase in owners. In 2013, it was 50% renting households, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[192,16424,674,50605,29711,813,196295,111,43,139,69,38531,21047,812,540],"class_list":{"0":"post-376457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-are","9":"tag-boom","10":"tag-building","11":"tag-creating","12":"tag-disappearing","13":"tag-edmunds","14":"tag-gentrified","15":"tag-new-zealand","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-renters","20":"tag-suburbs","21":"tag-susan","22":"tag-where"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376457","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=376457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}