Record number of Wellington rentals but flat hunting still a struggle for students
Saturday, 14 February 2026
After three months of flat hunting with no luck and one week till their impending move-out date, Ellice Lawrie and her friends started putting together “homeless plans”.
“We were working out friends we were going to crash with and getting a storage container,” Lawrie, a Wellington student studying at Massey University, said.
Things were starting to get “pretty desperate”.
Pleas to the landlord of a Mt Cook flat luckily led to them securing it, moving in with one day left on their previous tenancy.
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“I was like, look we're going to be homeless, is there any chance we can get it – is there anything we can do to help us get this?”
Despite Wellington recording its highest-ever number of rental properties available last month, finding a flat had been a struggle – even more so than the previous year, Lawrie said.
A total of 965 properties were listed for rent in January, up 54.2% compared with the same month last year, according to new data from realestate.co.nz.
That coincided with average weekly rents in Wellington dropping 8.9% year-on-year to $659 a week in January, although prices remain above the national average of $634.
By contrast, Otago recorded just 139 new rental listings in January, down 32.9% compared with a year earlier, while average rent also fell 4.1% to $519.
However, a search of rental listings on Trade Me Properties showed only 43 rentals available between $200 and $300 a week for a room in the Wellington district – 33 of those were for a one-bedroom unit.
Lawrie paid $230 a week for a mouldy flat in Newtown last year which she described as lacking a proper living room, with a tiny kitchen and bathroom, and worn down carpet with “mysterious splotches”.
Their extractor fan did not get fixed for three months, despite being part of the healthy home standards.
Even then, their landlord threatened to not pay back their bond because of some dust.
When they mentioned going to the Tenancy Tribunal, the mould and their broken extractor fan, their landlord immediately backed down, returning their bonds, Lawrie said.
“I feel like landlords know they can push, because you're just happy to have a place.
“But I do think landlords push things as far as they can and they're definitely not following the rules.”
This year, their only criteria was to have a backyard and no mould, which was “not a high bar”, and yet the quality of housing she saw varied.
Lawrie found rents had only dropped by $10 to $20 a week, there were still plenty of dark, damp homes and house viewings were still busy.
Since securing their flat a week ago, notifications from Trade Me told her the rent had dropped on multiple flats.
“I think landlords are maybe trying to still put them up for the same rent and then realising now they have to drop them. But even then, it's like $10 a week, it’s not a big drop.”
The rent at their new quaint flat was $1250 between four people but they wouldn’t have to worry about bus fares as they could walk to university.
Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association (VUWSA) president Aidan Donoghue said it was good that rent prices had stopped increasing but many places had not lowered them either.
Instead, some landlords were offering other incentives to keep students in their flats.
Donoghue’s previous landlord, for example, offered to waive damage to a cracked stove top which would cost $300, for him to stay another 12 months.
It was attractive to students to have “big money now versus $10 savings across the year”, he said.
“But it comes down to economics. If I offer you a $300 gift card to stay rather than lowering the rent by $10 which is $520 a year – there’s just more incentive for them to do that.”
He had also heard of more students from Wellington opting to live at home due to rent and halls of residence prices, though Victoria University director of campus operations Simon Johnson said hall space was near capacity and there were limited spaces in catered halls only.
Further out, the suburbs were more affordable but higher transport costs negated any savings on rent.
Last year Victoria University gave out $10,000 worth of $100 snapper cards, which were snapped up within 10 minutes, Donoghue said.
Part-time work was also still extremely hard to come by, especially with students having to compete with public servants who had lost their jobs.
VUWSA tried to encourage students to know their rights and stand up to landlords but often students feared repercussions.
“Then the closer to the end of your lease you get, the more and more accepting and willing and desperate you become.”
Renters United spokesperson Luke Somervell said there was more availability of rentals and a price drop because of job cuts and people leaving the city – and the country.
But it did nothing to improve the power dynamic between renters and landlords, or to increase stability, Somervell said.
“You’ve got, on the one hand, young people who probably have never negotiated or talked to a landlord before, versus someone who’s been in the game for years –decades, potentially.
“We would support people to get the best deal they can but it does show just how tough it is for renters when people are just desperate to find a place that’s not mouldy, that’s not going to make them sick, that’s in a decent location – that’s already seen as a tall order, let alone lower rent.”
Rent prices may have cooled but they were still significantly higher than 10 years ago and wages, benefits, student loan payments had not kept pace, Somervell said.
When considering a student’s circumstances including affordability and commuting, there were not as many options as people liked to think.
A recent survey by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development showed understanding of healthy home requirements had increased among landlords and renters which was a positive sign, he said.
But the lack of enforcement was an ongoing issue.
“At the moment, renters are just getting buffeted by the headwinds of the market.
“A couple of years ago, it just kept going up. Now it’s softened a bit, but there’s no guarantee it’s going to last.”