Landlords Link Whanganui branch manager Monique Haami-Heron said rents were \u201cdefinitely high\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cLiving costs are still challenging in Whanganui, especially because Whanganui can still sit in the lower income household [category],\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Whanganui\u2019s average annual household income in 2025 was $108,262, while nationally it was $143,748.<\/p>\n
Infometrics principal economist Nick Brunsdon said annual household incomes included any kind of taxable income earned \u2013 including wages, self-employment, benefits, New Zealand pension (superannuation) and ACC.<\/p>\n
Infometrics principal economist Nick Brunsdon said Whanganui’s rent was less affordable than in Auckland when comparing median weekly rent and median annual household income.<\/p>\n
The total earnings of the Whanganui District are divided by an estimated number of households in the district.<\/p>\n
Often larger cities were able to offer more affordable rental housing, with greater choice, versus smaller cities limited by standalone house property rentals, Brunsdon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re going to compare Whanganui with Auckland in terms of median rent, essentially the rent is $150 a week cheaper in Whanganui.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just that the incomes are that much lower that it\u2019s still more unaffordable in Whanganui.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Haami-Heron said Whanganui residents coming out of long-term rentals were facing rents that were double or more than what they had been paying for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a shock to the system for some people, and hard for people to adjust.\u201d<\/p>\n
Increases in vacancy times for listed rentals in recent years showed the market no longer reflected what people could afford in Whanganui, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember five years ago, we used to be able to rent a property in one week and that was probably the max time it would sit vacant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year, the average vacancy time on a property would be, say, three to four weeks, [or] could be even more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rent was affordable in Whanganui but surpassed the national average in 2021.<\/p>\n
From 2000 to 2017, rent was about 13% to 17% of household income.<\/p>\n
It has risen every year since 2018.<\/p>\n
Haami-Heron said the turning point was the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cSix years ago, rents were still quite low.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Covid hit, I remember there were a lot of investors just scooping up properties and they were putting rents up because, obviously, [the] cost of everything was going up and it was a booming market.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd now that we\u2019ve kind of settled back in and it\u2019s been a few years since then, now you\u2019d expect rents to drop a little bit, but they actually haven\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
The inflated prices became the market\u2019s basis, continuing to increase by $10 or $20 each time a property hit the market, she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why the market has been stagnant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harcourts Whanganui property manager Brittany Collins said demand for rental properties in Whanganui was still strong but \u201cvery price-sensitive\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s not priced right, it\u2019s going to sit there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haami-Heron said increasing living costs and a low buying market had also affected Whanganui\u2019s rental market by putting pressure on property owners.<\/p>\n
Owners who could not sell were turning to renting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not getting the price that they want, so then they come to us to rent them out and then they still expect to have a high rental amount.\u201d<\/p>\n
Collins said rising rates, complying with healthy homes standards and increasing living costs were costing landlords \u201ca lot of money\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got to get it back from somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haami-Heron said the high number of rentals available gave hope that the market could come down again soon.<\/p>\n
Landlords could also help by being more \u201crealistic\u201d about how much of their mortgages they expected tenants to cover, especially when taking on a mortgage that cost more than anticipated, she said.<\/p>\n
Collins said Whanganui was still one of the more affordable places to live in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything increases every year apart from, unfortunately, most wages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erin Smith is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Landlords Link Whanganui branch manager Monique Haami-Heron said rents were \u201cdefinitely high\u201d. \u201cLiving costs are still challenging in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9055,36966,51,2177,138,380,39053,5499,78,6132,805,7494,130,111,139,69,281967,4517,35995,16401,131,6041,52,21083,1530],"class_list":["post-572114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-9055","tag-affordable","tag-auckland","tag-average","tag-business","tag-decade","tag-doubled","tag-doubles","tag-in","tag-income","tag-incomes","tag-less","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-outpacing","tag-past","tag-relative","tag-rent","tag-than","tag-weekly","tag-wellington","tag-whanganuis","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572114","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=572114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}