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 Composition

Tauranga’s rental market is dominated by houses, with broadly even (and smaller) shares for apartments and flats. Of the 793 properties recently on the market in Tauranga, 639 have been houses (81%), with 83 apartments (10%) and 71 flats (9%).

The largest markets for rental houses are Tauranga Central/Greerton (162), Papamoa Beach (148), and Mount Maunganui (127), with Pyes Pa/Hairini/ Welcome Bay towards the smaller end (81). However, the largest concentrations of houses amongst all properties recently on the rental market have been in Papamoa Beach (97%), Pyes Pa/Hairini/ Welcome Bay (94%), and Bethlehem/ Otumoetai (84%).

Each part of Tauranga has had some flats on the rental market lately, although most have been in Tauranga Central/ Greerton (22), Mount Maunganui (21), and Bethlehem/Otumoetai (18). Almost all apartments recently on the rental market have been in either Mount Maunganui (where they’ve accounted for 24% of the overall market in that area) or Tauranga Central/Greerton.

House Size, By Bedroom Count

Looking at houses specifically (639 properties), nearly 60% of Tauranga’s properties recently on the rental market have had three bedrooms, with about 20% apiece for the two and four bedroom categories. None have had five bedrooms and only a trivial number with one. It’s common across the country for most of the rental house stock to have three bedrooms.

In the two-bedroom category, Tauranga Central/Greerton has had the most rental houses recently available (58), followed by Bethlehem/Otumoetai (32). Those two areas have also had the highest concentrations of two-bedroom properties amongst their overall recent total for houses on the rental market, at 36% and 26% respectively.

For four bedroom rental houses, the most have been in Papamoa Beach (39), followed by Pyes Pa/Hairini/Welcome Bay (29). The latter has had the highest concentration of four-bedroom stock amongst all of its recent houses on the rental market, at 36%.

In the three-bedroom house bracket, the largest rental markets have recently been Papamoa Beach (89) and Mount Maunganui (87). However, in terms of the concentration of this category amongst the overall rental house market, each part of Tauranga has been pretty even lately at 60-70%. Only Tauranga Central/Greerton is a little farther from the pack, at 48%.

Rent And Yield

By matching average value to rent we can look at gross yield for three-bedroom houses in each area. Median weekly rents for three-bedroom houses range from $490 in Tauranga Central/Greerton up to $550 in Mount Maunganui. Those two areas also have the lowest and highest median values for three-bedroom houses in Tauranga, at about $594,000 and $902,000 respectively.

Consistent with that, the highest gross rental yield for three-bedroom houses in Tauranga is in Tauranga Central/Greerton, at 4.3% – a figure which compares pretty well with many other parts of the country. Mount Maunganui’s gross rental yield for three-bedroom houses is closer to 3%.

Each part of Tauranga has seen steady growth in three-bedroom house rents over the past year, ranging from about 2% in Tauranga Central/Greerton and Mount Maunganui, up to 6% across the rest of the areas.