Auckland’s rental hot spots

The agency’s latest quarterly rental update showed the average weekly rent for a three bedroom property during the April to June 2016 quarter was $514.

This was an increase of less than 1% on the last quarter, but an increase of 4.8% on the same quarter in 2015.

Barfoot & Thompson director Kiri Barfoot said Auckland’s average weekly rents continue to follow a more tempered trend of year-on-year increases.

This showed that higher Auckland house prices are not flowing through directly into the rental market.

The agency’s data uses three bedroom rentals as their measure of the market.

But Barfoot said other rental types follow the same trend albeit at lower or higher price points depending on the number of bedrooms.

In the April to June quarter:

• One bedroom properties were up 5% year-on-year to $335 per week
• Two bedroom properties were up 6.2% year-on-year to $428 per week
• Four bedroom properties were up 4.2% year-on-year to $646 per week
• Five bedroom properties were up 4.8% year-on-year to $801

Suburb pricing trends remained consistent with the CBD apartment market the most expensive for one to three bedroom properties and the Eastern suburbs the most expensive for four plus bedroom properties.

It was South Auckland rental properties that saw the biggest increase year-on-year, going up by 6.8%.

Conversely, North Shore rental properties saw the smallest year-on-year increase, with just a 3.7% rise.

However, Barfoot said three suburbs broke the general trend with year-on-year increases in their average weekly rents of over 11%.

These three rental hotspots were Mt Albert which was up 14.7%, Parnell which was up 11.7% and Sandringham which was up 11.6%.

“These areas are centrally located but still offer the benefits of suburban living, making them popular choices,” she said.

“These areas are fast becoming popular as the ‘new central suburbs’, the next Ponsonby and Grey Lynns if you will, and our data suggests continued future growth particularly for Mt Albert and Sandringham.”