Glut of Wellington stock sees the average rent landlords are asking for drop 8.4% in a year

Thursday, 8 January 2026

A glut of Wellington rentals hitting the market has led to an 8.4% drop in the average rent landlords are asking for in the capital when they list their properties, according to Realestate.co.nz.

The property listings service said there had been a 91.5% increase in homes listed for rent in Wellington between December 2024 and December 2025, ending the year with with 925 available rental properties.

The national average weekly asking rent in landlord listings dropped 2.4% in 2025 to $626 per week. The average rent asked for by landlords in Wellington was $663.

But while Wellington, Auckland (down 1.7%) and Waikato (down 3.1%) all saw drops in the average rent landlords were seeking, a rental boom gripped Central Otago, and to a lesser extent Marlborough and Southland.

Asking rents in Central Otago/Lakes District increased 11.3% during the year.

Southland saw the average rent being sought by landlords rise by 2.3%.

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Vanessa Williams, spokesperson for realestate.co.nz, said “stock levels” of properties being advertised for rent had increased significantly in parts of the country.

There were 7577 homes listed for rent in December, which was 15.9% more than in December 2024. Hawke’s Bay recorded a 151.2% increase.

Wairarapa, Nelson and Bays, and Gisborne all reported year-on-year stock increases over 80%.

“The continual abundance of rental stock is giving renters breathing room, but places like Central Otago/Lakes District remind us that lifestyle markets operate differently,” she said.

The glut in properties for rent was the result of a number of factors including investors returning to the market, buying places and offering them for rent, but also young people living at home for longer, or leaving New Zealand in search of better prospects overseas.

“The big question for 2026 is whether the rental supply nationally translates into lasting affordability or whether the regional rental divide grows.”

She said: “It does make me a little nervous as I am a property investor. But renters have had a very tough time for many, many years because there hasn’t been enough stock on the market, so it’s nice for there to be a bit of a reprieve.”

Williams said New Zealand’s rental landscape was starting to show “a clearer split between premium lifestyle markets and the rest of the country”.

“Central Otago/Lakes District continues to sit in a league of its own, driven by strong demand and a limited pool of rentals which is pushing prices to record highs. We’ve seen this week that first-home buyers made up 19% of all property purchases in Queenstown last year.

“When weekly rental prices start closing in on mortgage repayments, it’s no surprise that renters are making the leap into home ownership and our data shows that shift is well underway,” she said.

The Coromandel bucked that trend, with the average asking rent down 41%, however, Williams said with just 16 properties for rent in the region listed on Realestate.co.nz, several larger, or smaller homes being offered for rent could result in a big move in the average.