Scramble for rental properties
Listings are few and far between online and rents are rising. Photo: realestate.co.nz
Competition for rental accommodation in Queenstown is so fierce, workers are resorting to sleeping in cars again, while others opt to leave town.
Citizens Advice Bureau manager Barbara McDonnell says pressure on the market appears to be returning to pre-Covid levels.
Back then, insatiable demand and little supply saw rents spiral, with seasonal workers cramming into shared housing, hot bedding, and paying to stay in sleep-outs and vans on driveways. Tent villages popped up on Skyline Hill and Rafters Road, Gibbston.
"We're definitely seeing more people coming in who are sleeping in cars, now it's summer" says McDonnell, who's been with CAB Queenstown for 12 years.
"They're just doing whatever they can to try and make it work. I'm not sure whether they driving out to 12 Mile [DOC site] every night or just flying under the radar freedom camping."
The shortage of accommodation is a huge factor in the town's staffing problem.
"We've had people come in with multiple job offers but they can't find anywhere to live. They'll have viewed 40 flats or rooms. It's a competition to be chosen as a flatmate even, never mind get a lease in your own name."
Those who've been in town through the pandemic face rental hikes when their 12-month anniversary ticks over.
"That's the main enquiry we get at the moment: 'can my landlord do this?'. It takes up so much of people's income. But if the landlord can prove that's the market rate, they can charge it. A year ago, you could get a three-bedroom house for $650, now people are falling over themselves to pay that for a two-bedroom flat."
Lakes Weekly Bulletin worker Lana Yang, 31, is one of the town's long-stayers facing an uncertain future.
She's been in her rental for three years, and in town for four, but now has to move out of the $300-a-week property and find new digs.
"It's not easy, especially because I have a cat," she says. "I have nowhere to go, so I'm taking leave and heading back home to China until March to visit my family.
"My partner has already left town, for Nelson. He's very sad and frustrated to not be able to find anywhere, because he's lived in Queenstown for six or seven years."
Yang says she has friends, a couple with a baby, who hoped to rent a $650 two-bedroom home in Hanley's Farm, but were told their application was one of 200.
The market for double rooms is as much as $450, she says. There are about 30 rental listings for Queenstown on realestate.co.nz and Trade Me, while local specialist Queenstown Accommodation Centre has about a dozen listings on its website a present.
QAC general manager Richard Hoskin says they have multiple applications for every property. They can have five new listings a week, but they are generally quickly snapped up.
"During Covid, landlords of short stay properties, such as Airbnb, changed to long-term to secure the income, but that's turning around again now," Hoskin says. "It's now just Queenstown, it's happening everywhere.
"The demand has returned to pre-Covid levels, in specific areas, the weekly rent in probably exceeding pre-Covid levels.
"Our job is to get the balance right between providing a fair price for tenant versus a fair return for the owner, and for it not to be heavily weighted one way or the other."
Hoskin says QAC does not allow any hot bedding in the properties it manages and he hasn't heard that it's happening elsewhere.
But he also doesn't see a fall in demand or rents anytime soon.
"The streets are busy, there's people in town for summer and a lack of supply. So, the current rents will stand and may get a little higher, but that's reflective of the quality of the property. There's a lot of new builds being brought to the market, especially at Hanley's Farm. They modern, well insulated, and have the all facilities tenants want."
