Market Composition

The rental market in Dunedin comprises mainly houses with a few flats and limited apartments.

Houses are the most significant property type, in many areas accounting for at least 75% of properties in the rental market. Musselburgh/Vauxhall/Peninsula, Ravenbourne/Mt Mera/Port Chalmers, Rural and Sunnyvale/Abbotsford/Burnside the rental markets are exclusively made up of houses.

Flats are also fairly common across the City. In four areas, at least a third of properties are flats and in both North Dunedin/Woodhaugh and University/Maori Hill flats account for over half the rental properties. Rental apartments exist in five areas, most notably Central Dunedin.

Three bedroom houses are the most prevalent in the Dunedin rental market. They feature in all but two areas – North Dunedin/Woodhaugh and Rural which have only larger (four or five bedroom) houses. Mosgiel is made of exclusively three-bedroom houses, while Kenmure/Mornington is also heavily weighted towards three-bedroom houses with over 75%. Central Dunedin and North East Valley/Pinehill have houses across the range of number of bedrooms, with roughly 20-30% of properties in each group (excluding one bedroom houses which are non-existent in the rental market). Most other areas are made of predominantly two- and three-bedrooms houses.

Rent And Yield

Median weekly rent across the city varies between the areas by just over $100. Caversham and South Dunedin/St Kilda come in under $300 at $280 and $295 respectively, while University/Maori Hill has a median rent of $385 a week. In remaining areas, median rent is between $300 and $340.

The median values illustrate a similar pattern with Caversham and South Dunedin/St Kilda both under $200,000, while University/Maori Hill is the only area above $300,000 and by some way at $389,000. Rents are relatively in line with value, resulting in a similar gross yield across each of the areas. The areas with greatest gross yield are those lower value areas; South Dunedin (7.7% gross yield), Caversham and North East Valley/Pinehill (7.4%). The most expensive area, University/Maori Hill, has the lowest gross yield of 5.1%.