Flat in dollars, falling in real terms
Growth fell from 6.5% a year in mid-2023 to zero, the first flat spell since 2009–10. Prices rose 6.9% over the last two years, so real rents fell 6.7%, and are 8% below their 2022 peak.
Data analysis · MBIE rental bond data · Feb 1993 to Jul 2026
New Zealand rents have stalled. In real terms, they're falling.
After more than a decade of rises every single year, the national median rent has sat at about $590–600 a week since 2024. Tenancies kept growing, the big cities started to cool, and the regions kept climbing. Adjusted for inflation, the typical new tenancy now costs 8% less than at its 2022 peak. Here's what 33 years of bond data shows.
Key findings
But supply isn't the local story
Tenancies grew 6–8% a year nationally, yet across 43 districts, faster tenancy growth shows no link to slower rent growth (r = 0.07). The slowdown looks nationwide, not driven by local supply.
Cities cool, regions climb
Wellington City is down 6% in two years and Auckland is flat, while the West Coast, Southland, Dunedin and Central Otago are up 9–12%.
The cheap end is squeezed
Upper-quartile rent was 1.73× the lower quartile in 2015 and is 1.44× now. The cheapest rentals have risen fastest.
Weekly rent, 1993 to today
Median weekly rent for new bonds, 12-month average. Compare up to three regions with New Zealand.
View the data as a table
In today's dollars, rents peaked in 2022
Median weekly rent for new tenancies, quarterly, as paid (nominal) and adjusted for inflation into June 2026 dollars (real).
New-tenancy rents rose faster than sitting tenants'
Growth since June 2018 (= 100): rents for new tenancies (bond data), rents for all tenants (CPI rentals), and prices overall (CPI).
Every region at a glance
Median weekly rent since 2015 (12-month average) on a shared scale, against New Zealand (dashed). Sorted by 2-year change. Select a region to add it to the chart above.
Rents stalled while tenancies kept growing
Year-on-year change: median rent (12-month average) and active tenancies, New Zealand.
Who's rising, who's falling
Change in median weekly rent by region (12-month average).
Does more supply mean cheaper rent? Not locally.
Each dot is a district or city: growth in active tenancies (across) against growth in median rent (up), both over 2 years. If local supply drove rents, the dots would slope downwards.
Districts and cities
43 areas with at least 30 new bonds a month. Click a column to sort.
The rental season
New tenancies by calendar month vs the yearly trend, 2010–2019 average. Summer is moving season.
The gap is closing from below
Upper-quartile rent divided by lower-quartile rent, New Zealand. Lower means cheap rentals are catching up.
Houses by number of bedrooms
Median weekly rent for houses, New Zealand, 2020 Q1 to 2024 Q3.
Data-quality note
Why the bedroom chart stops in 2024
Share of new bonds recorded as 1 bedroom, or with no bedroom count.
From 2024 Q4 the share of bonds with no bedroom count jumps from about 7% to 27%. From 2025 Q4 those unknowns appear to be recorded as "1 bedroom", whose share leaps from 14% to 54%, which is why 1-bed houses suddenly show the same rent as 3-beds. This looks like a change in how bonds are recorded, not a market shift. Totals are unaffected, so only the bedroom breakdowns are cut off at 2024 Q3.
How this was built
Data
Three public CSVs from Tenancy Services (MBIE): monthly bonds by district and by region since 1993, and quarterly bonds by dwelling type and bedrooms since 2020. Inflation adjustment uses Stats NZ's consumers price index (all groups, and actual rentals for housing), June 2018 to June 2026. Elsewhere rents are nominal, as paid.
Model
Loaded and typed in DuckDB with SQL. Growth uses 12-month trailing averages so seasonality doesn't distort comparisons, built with window functions. Seasonality is each month's ratio to a centred 12-month average over 2010–2019.
Checks
District totals reconcile with region totals (51,819 vs 51,813 Wellington tenancies). Bonds with no recorded area are excluded. Bedroom data after 2024 Q3 is excluded after a coding change, documented above.
Source: . Code: SQL model, pipeline and dashboard on GitHub.