Wellington Rental Market Review - February 2025

As the team returned in January after a well deserved break we were all ready to hit the ground running with the peak season looming. The hope was that the typical increase in demand for properties would return; we had seen slight signs of improvement in this towards the end of 2024.

However, things haven't been quite as we would have liked, with demand for rentals still not where it would usually be at this time of year, in fact, according to TradeMe data from January, demand for rental properties in the Wellington region was down 23% when compared to January 2024.

The supply of available rentals has also added to the challenging market conditions, with an increase in stock of 39% in January 2025 vs the same period in 2024. 

This has led to a smaller pool of potential tenants having a much wider choice of stock to pick from meaning that good tenants are often receiving multiple tenancy offers.

Not only this but we have seen some prospective tenants begin to enquire about negotiating lower rents than are being advertised - something we have not had for a while! 

Notwithstanding these challenges, the team has been working hard to secure tenants for our clients, and we managed to retain a very low vacancy rate for the month of January with only 0.83% of stock vacant as at the end of the month, and 15 lets agreed during the month.

Premium marketing, pricing and presentation are, as always, key to the process of securing good tenants in a timely manner.