Market Composition

The rental market across Christchurch North comprises predominantly houses, with a few flats and no rental apartments. Unsurprisingly for a rural area, Waimakariri is made up of exclusively houses, while Sawyers Arms/Northcote/Belfast and Rangiora/Kaiapoi have the greatest percentage of flats at 16% and 15% respectively.

House Size, By Bedroom Count

In terms of size of houses, three and four bedroom houses are the most common across the Christchurch North rental market.

In Sawyers Arms/Northcote/Belfast and Rangiora/Kaiapoi roughly two-thirds of the rental house market is three bedrooms while Styx/Parklands and Rural Waimakariri offer the greatest percentage of larger four bedroom houses. In Rural Waimakariri three and four-bedroom houses are an equal share of the market at 39%.

Both Marshland/Redwood and Rural Waimakariri offer a small percentage of five (or more) bedroom houses, while every area has a few two-bedroom rental houses – Rangiora/Kaiapoi and Rural Waimakariri the most at 21% and 18% respectively.

There is no representation of one-bedroom houses in the rental market here, which is not surprising given the area is not intensely populated, like central cities which would tend to have smaller houses/properties.

Rent And Yield

Median weekly rent is relatively tightly constrained across the area, ranging from $380 in Rangiora/Kaiapoi to $425 in Marshland/Redwood. And rent is relatively in line with the median value of properties in each area as well with Rangiora/Kaiapoi at the affordable end ($409k) and Marshland/Redwood more expensive ($473k).

This alignment of rent to value provides similar gross yield across the area, however Styx/Parklands offers the greater percentage at 5.3%, followed by Rural Waimakariri at 5.0%.

As is common across the Christchurch region, rent has dropped over the past year in the north as well. Sawyers Arms/Northcote/Belfast areas have experienced the greatest decrease of 8.9%, while Rural Waimakariri has been less affected at -2.4%.