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

The rental market in Tauranga is concentrated on houses, as tends to be the case in most parts of the country. Of the 681 properties recently available for rent, 89% have been houses (603 properties), with 7% flats (51), and 4% apartments (27).

Papamoa Beach has recently been the largest market for rental houses, with 177, followed by Bethlehem/Otumoetai and Tauranga Central/Greerton, with 114 each. Mount Maunganui (105) and Pyes Pa/Hairini/Welcome Bay (93) haven’t been far behind. Papamoa Beach has also had the highest concentration of houses amongst the overall stock of properties recently available for rent, at 97%. Pyes Pa/Hairini/Welcome Bay has also topped 90%, with the other parts of Tauranga in the 80% range.

For flats, the largest markets have recently been Tauranga Central/ Greerton and Bethlehem/Otumoetai. Mount Maunganui and Tauranga Central/ Greerton have had the most apartments.

House Size, By Bedroom Count

Looking specifically at houses (603 properties), 58% recently on the rental market across Tauranga have had three bedrooms, or 351 properties. Another 21% have had two bedrooms (129), and 19% have had four (117). There have been no five bedroom houses recently available for rent, and only six one-bedroom houses (all in Bethlehem/Otumoetai).

The largest market lately for three bedroom houses to rent has been Papamoa Beach (108 properties), with the other parts of Tauranga having figures between 50 and 70. The concentration of three-bedroom properties amongst the stock of houses recently for rent has been highest in Mount Maunganui (66%), and lowest in Bethlehem/Otumoetai (53%). Bethlehem/Otumoetai has a high share of four-bedroom houses for rent (24%), although less than the strongest market here, Pyes Pa/Hairini/Welcome Bay, with 32%. Mount Maunganui and Tauranga Central/Greerton have much smaller concentrations of four-bedroom properties amongst the recently available houses to rent. Tauranga Central had the most two-bedroom houses for rent (42), or a 37% concentration.

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 across each of Tauranga’s sub-markets are actually quite tightly bunched, ranging from $580 in Tauranga Central/Greerton and Bethlehem/Otumoetai up to $630 for Papamoa Beach. However, the range for median values is much wider, from less than $800,000 in Tauranga Central/ Greerton up to more than $1.3m in Mount Maunganui.

Gross rental yields for three-bedroom houses also differ quite markedly, from 2.3% in Mount Maunganui up to 3.8% in Tauranga Central/Greerton. Compared to a typical yield of less than 3% across many parts of NZ now, some areas of Tauranga still look relatively attractive. Rental growth has been strong. Mount Maunganui has seen the lowest growth for three-bedroom houses, but at 7.1% it’s still a solid figure. The top performing areas saw double-digit growth: eg Tauranga Central/Greerton at 16.7%.