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 on Auckland’s North Shore has recently been dominated by houses. Of the 1,355 properties recently on the rental market, 1,067 (79%) have been houses, with 147 flats (11%) and 141 apartments (10%).

Sunnynook/Westlake has recently had the most houses on the rental market (151), followed by Hillcrest/Northcote (86), as well as Glendhu/Glenfield and Beach Haven/Birkdale, both with 82. By contrast, Devonport has only 25 houses recently on the rental market. In terms of the concentration of houses amongst recent rental properties, the figure has been 100% in Greenhithe/Unsworth Heights, Rothesay/Murrays/Mairangi Bays, Torbay, and Wairau Park/Glenfield North.

Chatswood/Birkenhead/Northcote Point has been the largest rental market for flats (23), while areas such as Browns Bay (5), Albany, and North Harbour/Pinehill have had very few. For apartments, Takapuna (33) has been the largest market lately, while an area such as East Coast Bays hasn’t had any.

House Size, By Bedroom Count

Looking specifically at houses (1,067 properties), 47% recently on the market on the North Shore have had three bedrooms (501), 26% in the four-bedroom bracket, and 19% in the two-bedroom bracket. Only 7% have had five bedrooms, and 1% one bedroom. It’s common across the country for rental houses to be towards the smaller end of the spectrum.

North Harbour/Pinehill (11) and Sunnynook/Westlake (10) have recently been the largest markets for five-bedroom rental houses, while the latter has also been the largest in the four-bedroom category (34 properties). At the other end of the spectrum, Devonport has recently had very few four-bedroom houses on the rental market (only five), with Wairau Park/Glenfield North also smaller.

In the key three-bedroom category Sunnynook/Westlake again feature, but this time along with Beach Haven/ Birkdale (57) and Hillcrest/Northcote (49). Beach Haven/Birkdale has also had the highest concentration (70%) of three-bedroom properties amongst the houses recently up for rent. East Coast Bays had been at the other end of the spectrum, at just 29%. However, it has been a more significant market for two-bedroom rental houses lately, along with Devonport.

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 on the North Shore range from $580 in Glendhu/Glenfield up to $780 in Devonport. The values for these properties range from about $952,000 in Beach Haven/Birkdale up to almost $1.77 million in Devonport. The maximum gross rental yield for three-bedroom houses on the North Shore is 3.3% in Beach Haven/Birkdale (still low by national standards), down to a minimum of 2.2% in East Coast Bays.

In terms of rental growth, three-bedroom houses in Browns Bay have performed strongly (15.7%), as has Hillcrest/Northcote (6.6%), and Wairau Park/Glenfield North (6.1%). Chatswood/ Birkenhead/Northcote Point lag (-4.1%).

Median Rent: Weekly rent based on the bonds lodged for three-bedroom houses in the three months to January 2021. Rent Growth: The percentage change in rent compared to 12 months prior. Median Value: The median value of three-bedroom houses in the area based on estimating the current market value of each property using our E-Valuer. Gross Yield: Annualised median rent as a percentage of median property value.