Auckland rents to go up after flooding

PHOTO: Homes stickered on Kimberley Road in Auckland’s suburb of Epsom. Photo: RNZ / Rayssa Almeida

Expect Auckland rents to go up as remedial work to flood-damaged properties affects supply and demand, an investors body is warning.

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A red stickered property does not necessarily need to be bowled, Kelleher said, but it was uninhabitable until remedial work was done.

The group was aiming to get through about 700 to 1000 property assessments a day.

Sutherland told Checkpoint it was hard to get a handle on the number of rentals hit by flooding in the city, but said anecdotally “a good proportion” of her organisation’s members had been affected.

As a result, the cost of renting would inevitably increase.

Families across Auckland are already struggling with a cost-of-living crisis as inflation continues to bump up the price of everyday items, like food and fuel.

“We are going to have the supply and demand issue,” Sutherland said.

“So we will have a shortage of supply of rentals for a period of time just while these repairs are undertaken. And I think it just needs understanding from landlords and from tenants that that will be the case and we may see some increased rent for that period of time.

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“I’m not in a position to say whether it’s fair or not. It’s the same in any market when the supply and demand changes. I don’t think landlords are out there to make an extra buck.

“At the end of the day, they’re in there just trying to do the best by their tenants really, and offer properties to people. And if if the rental price has changed during that time, then that is the market.”

Reduced rent was an option open to tenants if they remained in property damaged by flooding, but that was a negotiation between tenants and landlords themselves, based in individual circumstances, she said.

Landlords did have a legal obligation to aid tenants in a rental home damaged by the flooding by drying it out and she encouraged landlords to do so.

Consumer NZ said for rentals which had been damaged but were still inhabitable, the rent should be reduced. Alternatively, the landlord or tenant could apply to the tenancy tribunal to end the tenancy.

“There’s no black and white, written-down rules about this, really – even the insurers and the Residential Tenancies Act, disagree on the definition of what’s uninhabitable,” Sutherland said.

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“And actually, the Residential Tenancies Act doesn’t even have a definition of ‘inhabitable’ in there. So what I would encourage landlords to do is to do all they can to make premises habitable for tenants. If they can’t, then it’s working with your insurer and your tenant to make sure that firstly, everyone’s safe, and that the damage to property, both yours and the tenant’s, is minimised.”

She said landlords should get in there and help ensure tenants can stay in the property.

“I’ve been in there with my husband, and we’ve ripped out carpets, we’ve been drying floors, we’re doing wet, dry vacuuming,” she said.

“So if landlords are in a position to do that, I really do encourage you to get in and help as much as you can.”