Rental Prices
Table of Contents
This page contains copies of charts that show prices by region. These are frequently used in posts, but they are repeated here to make it easy to find a chart you are specifically interested in.
Updates are made regularly, for prices it is usually monthly after the data is published by TenancyServices or MBIE
Key data
Rent compared with Household Incomes shows the proportion of income households are prepared to spend for rentals. Rents have followed Household Incomes for the almost 30 years of this data. ie either rents drive incomes or incomes drive rents, only the latter makes sense. I have published this comparison since 2012, but the comparison was confirmed by Treasury in August 2023.
Each chart has a band in green which is where I believe market balance is being met. The dotted line is NZ as a whole.
Prices
Rental prices in each region are subject to supply and demand pressures that are different in every region. Variations outside the green band are caused by supply and demand imbalance, Auckland spent years with insufficient rentals, BoP have recently increased supply, Canterbury is stuggling post the earthquake overbuild and Wellington’s CBD building boom has gone too long.
The prices quoted are the geometric mean, this means the average taking into account variations caused by house sizes. Seasonal variations show up as a saw-tooth shape, typical in university cities.
New Zealand detail
This detail shows the seasonal variations of prices driven in the main by student relocations in December and January.
Read these charts both ways, each line covers the year by month, the gaps between lines show price rises (or falls) between years, allowing seasonal comparisons.
Main Regions
Other Regions
Rent to Income Ratio as above for the main regions
Prices