Rents fall for first time since 2009
Rents have fallen on an annual basis for the first time since late 2009, property research firm Cotality says.
Its latest data points to an update from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which showed national median rents in the three months to May were down 0.3 percent from the year before.
It follows reports of drops in the price being asked for advertised rental properties.
Cotality chief economist Kelvin Davidson said it was a notable change after big rental increases between 2021 and 2023.
“I think it’s quite significant. There aren’t many periods in the past where rents have fallen. The latest numbers are only down slightly but you have to go back to 2009 to find a period where annual rental growth on these numbers has been negative and before that it was the late 1990s. So around the Asian financial crisis and the GFC.”
He said it showed a shift in the market.
The grim reality of WHY rents are dropping is terrifying.
Bernard Hickey points out renters simply don’t have the money as homelessness explodes…
- inflation is rising back towards 3% later this year from 2.5% early in 2025, with prices of ‘essentials’ ie food, rent, rates, electricity and petrol rising twice as fast as disposable income for renters;
…there are 28 000 less jobs…

…70 000 Kiwis have fled overseas and the economy is flat lining BECAUSE of this Government’s economic policies!
The Economy is so damaged from National’s 2024 construction costs that the knock on effect has been devastating.
Business investment is now so weak that banks have not lent any net new money to non-landlord businesses and farmers since May last year!
READ THAT AGAIN!
Business investment is now so weak that banks have not lent any net new money to non-landlord businesses and farmers since May last year!
Jesus wept that is destructive.
Add that alongside to the Centrix report this month that showed the cost of the Government’s shutting down of construction saw over 12 000 jobs gone in a year!
The incredibly negative impact on the economy from this Government’s ideological experiment has borne a bitter, bitter harvest and no amount of of ‘we are fixing Labour’s mistakes’ can gloss over the fact that these negative economic conditions that we are experiencing ARE THE DIRECT RESULT of National’s own policies.
The ONLY thing that National are desperately holding onto now is selling citizenships to the mega wealthy and changing the Overseas Investment rules to allow Trans-National’s to exploit the housing market!
Dita De Boni reports that The Government is trumpeting the fact that 215 applications have so far been received for the rejigged Golden visa categories, with $1 billion in new money landing this year if all those who applied are approved.
Is this what we have become?
A country selling citizenship to multi-millionaires to prop up our economy?
The changes Winston has announced is to acquiesce to these 215 multi-millionaires…
Winston Peters expects a change impacting the foreign buyers ban will be announced this year, but the New Zealand First leader denies his party is “softening” its approach.
Consultation is under way within NZ First and any changes will have to go in front of the party’s coalition partners for consideration before any Government policy is confirmed.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has publicly said conversations are ongoing about allowing foreigners to purchase property here.
To get the green light to buy homes here, NZ First believes foreigners would need to make a significant investment to the New Zealand economy. The party also does not want to disrupt the housing market.
The Herald understands no proposal has yet been put before associate Finance Minister David Seymour, who has responsibility for the Overseas Investment Act.
…this Government has run out of economic ideas and is now trying to sell citizenship’s to prop the economy up while changing our Overseas Investment rules and yet no one seems to be aware this is happening because we have a dumbed down Seven Sharp and a NZ media built upon properly speculation advertising.
Why aren’t any of you seeing this?
Look, I appreciate that most of us are woking our fingers to the bone just trying to keep ourselves and our whanau above water, but the implications of 215 multi-millionaires buying their way into NZ and suddenly changing the Overseas investor rules are obviously linked in a very dangerous way here.
You have a desperate Government willing to allow a global elite of multimillionaires buy citizenship and then change the rules of overseas investors.
This isn’t about Labour borrowing for a once in a century pandemic anymore, this is the bitter harvest of the 2024 cuts to public investment into infrastructure!
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Yes the economy is imploding under National.
https://www.morningside.nz/news/the-end-of-an-era-iconic-new-zealand-retailer-shuts-down-after-more-than-a-century-in-business/
Another sad day for retail. And yes Mark Mitchell this is happening now under your government, not 8 years ago under Labour. That excuse is so lame it’s like a 5 year old telling on another for making the mess they created.
Show some integrity and own your mistakes.
Rent is unearned income.
That rents are falling indicates that the rentier class were overcharging their tennants.
Rents are falling as they were too expensive in the first place, thousands of Kiwis have left, and many families have no choice but to live together with the cost of living very high and to save costs. People can’t afford to pay most of their wages on accommodation, but the CoC don’t really care they talk but they are not actually walking their talk, Nicolia is a good example she acts like she is doing something when she is not.
Rents fall for first time since 2009
Mine just went up by 20% FFS
Landlords are whiney prats – get all sorts of welfare through the taxpayer then put rent up anyway
Yep mine went up 180 a fortnight so not sure property research firm Cotality would be the appropriate nor neutral source to promote rent decreases.
Rents can’t ever fall very far in NZ, since Council Rates are WAY up. The countless boondoggle projects alone strangle any notion of spending cuts (not to mention endless pay rises for Council executives). The whole thing needs to be gutted. Councils need to get back to basics (i.e. there core functions of roads, rubbish collection, sewerage etc) and just stop with the bottomless pit of “nice to haves”.
Dunedin is booming, with drugs and cooks being protected over working class victims being bashed in the face. Dirty cops. One big laundering shit hole fraud. Ozark style. The Dunedin court is completely corrupt. Corruption destroyed NZ. If this is what woke left looks like then stick the whole shit hole up your arse! I can’t wait to leave and never set foot here again! Ideology is idiocracy! Evil pathetic cesspit.
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