The market at work

Dom Post reports:

Wellington property agents are offering two weeks’ free rent and a car park to entice tenants into apartments.

The capital is the only city where supply is outstripping demand, as the rest of the country faces a severe shortage of rental properties.

There were 444 vacant apartments on Trade Me yesterday, with 1099 more being built, or due to be, in the city over the next 18 months.

Excellent news for renters.

Wellington Property Investors Federation president Jackie Thomas-Teague said the recently opened 326-unit Soho apartment block in Taranaki St was offering apartments at “seriously underpriced” rents.

This was “an insult” to longer-established tenants and putting pressure on the wider market. “If Wellington’s not careful it could well end up in a similar situation to [the property crash in] Auckland.”

Oh I love the 1984 type double speak. Cheaper rents are not an insult to tenants. Nothing wrong with being a property investor, but don’t try and portray yourself as speaking on behalf of tenants, and how low rents will be insulting to tenants.