The Data

Rental data is sourced from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment based on rental bonds lodged. This data is supplied to us grouped into geographic areas based on statistical area units used by Statistics NZ for the census and as a result do not always match well with common usage suburb names.

The rental data for each area is matched to property price information from our database to determine property prices and therefore yield. The yield is calculated as the annualised rental income divided by the median property value calculated using our E-Valuer.

Market Compostion

The rental market in Wellington Central is dominated by apartments, with 531 of the 729 (73%) properties recently available in this area being in that category. There have also been 144 houses (20%) and 54 flats (7%).

Te Aro is easily the largest area for rental apartments, with 246 recently on the market, followed by Lambton (117). The concentrations are also highest in these areas, with apartments comprising 96% and 91% respectively of the recently available rental properties.

Wadestown/Thorndon has had the highest number of houses recently on the rental market (42), as well as the highest concentration for that property type (45%). Mt Cook has also had a relatively high concentration for houses (40%). Looking at flats, the more common areas are Mt Victoria/Roseneath and Kelburn/ Aro Valley.

Apartment Size, By Bedroom Count

Looking specifically at apartments, 60% of these 531 properties recently on the rental market in Wellington Central have had one bedroom, followed by 36% with two. Only 4% have had three bedrooms (all 21 of them in Te Aro), and none with either four or five.

In that two-bedroom apartment category, the most properties recently available for rent have been in Te Aro (81), followed by Lambton (45), and Mt Victoria/Roseneath (36). In terms of concentration, the highest figure has been in Mt Victoria/Roseneath, with 60% of recently available apartments having two bedrooms. Next is Wadestown/ Thorndon with 40%.

For the dominant one-bedroom category, the most apartments recently for rent have been in Te Aro (144), followed by Lambton (72). That represents about 60% of all the recently available apartments in those areas. However, in terms of concentration, onebedroom apartments have been relatively more significant in Mt Cook (85%) and Kelburn/Aro Valley (75%).

Rent And Yield

By matching average value to rent we can look at gross yield for one-bedroom apartments in each area.

Median weekly rents for onebedroom apartments across Wellington Central range from $355 in Kelburn/ Aro Valley up to $495 in Mt Victoria/ Roseneath. The median values for these properties differ a little more widely (for the areas where we can provide an estimated value), from about $325,000 in Lambton up to almost $480,000 in Wadestown/Thorndon.

In terms of gross yields, there is a range across Wellington Central for one-bedroom apartments from 6.2% in Lambton to 4.6% in Mt Cook – but by the standards of other parts of NZ and other property types, these are all attractive figures. To be fair, Lambton has seen rents themselves decline a little over the past year, but they’ve risen strongly in Mt Cook.