8 bunk beds and 2 bedrooms: Auckland rental labelled 'exploitative'

A small two-bedroom Auckland rental crammed with bunk beds for eight or more renters has been labelled "tenant exploitation" and "disgusting".

It will also now be the subject of an Auckland Council investigation into whether it was being used as a boarding house without a permit.

A Sandringham rental has been slammed as "disgraceful" by a property management consultant. Photo / TradeMe

The rental, at 1/8 Freyberg Ave in Sandringham, was advertised on TradeMe as being for "singles, students, full workers, groups" and going for $650 per week.

"Suitable for eight or more tenants", it has two bedrooms - with eight single beds, one bathroom and a moderately sized fridge.

A Sandringham rental has crammed eight bunks beds into two bedrooms. Photo / TradeMe

There was no onsite parking, with the closest being "at the end of the street about 400m away".

It was "previously used as worker accommodation up until two weeks ago with eight adults (sic) builders", according to its advertisement.

David Faulkner - a consultant to the property management industry with Real-iQ - has slammed those managing the property.

"I think it is disgusting - that is tenant exploitation," he said.

"You have four full-grown adults sleeping in one bedroom in single beds, it is overcrowding, it is not healthy - everything about it is morally wrong."

The rental's kitchen. Photo / TradeMe

Kerri Ferguson, from Auckland Council's Compliance Investigations team said that based on the advertisement the rental would be classified as a boarding house.

"However, the council has checked the records for this address and there is no indication this property has a permit to operate as a boarding house.

"As such, the council compliance officers will be investigating this matter."

The Herald has approached the company advertising the rental for comment.

But Faulkner has said the rental demonstrated why the property management industry needed regulation.

His company was among 70 organisations backing a Real Estate Institute campaign urging the Government to review the property management industry and announce reforms before the 2020 election.

A view inside one of the bedrooms. Photo / TradeMe

The REI estimated property managers managed 184,000 homes, or about one-third of all Kiwi rental properties.

It meant they had keys and personal information, billions of dollars of housing and millions in rent and bond money in their care.

Yet they didn't need a licence or any kind of accreditation, REI chief executive Bindi Norwell said.

All a person needed to do to become a property manager was say they were one.

"We strongly believe regulation is required to create an industry where all property managers operate ethically and with honesty and transparency."

Faulkner said regulation would stop companies from putting rentals like the Sandringham one on the market.

"When you have a regulated property management industry companies like that will be exposed, they will be outed, they will be gone," he said.

He also called for stiffer fines at the Tenancy Tribunal for landlords and property managers, who did the wrong thing.

"While rents have gone up the fines have stayed the same," he said.

"So you've got to have really meaningful enforcement where it acts as such a disincentive for a landlord to do something like this that the risk of doing it is too great."