Wellington rental prices continue to rise. Photo / NZ Herald
RNZ.
Students in the capital are resorting to sleeping in cars overnight, a sixth year Wellington student says, as weekly rent prices surpass $600.
Cameron Williams is in her final year of study at Victoria University of Wellington.
She says her first flat cost her $180 per week six years ago and she is now paying $245 per week rent only for her room in a five-bed flat in central Wellington.
She and her flatmates started looking in October for a property.
She says flat hunting is chaotic.
"You go to a viewing for one flat and there'll be anywhere between 20 to 50 other people there trying to sign for the same place.
"With only one landlord or property manager there to try and talk to everybody."
Standing out from the crowd is much harder for first year students, she says, without any flatting experience.
She has heard stories of a few friends who have simply been unable to find anywhere to live - some sleep on couches others in their cars.
"I know of students who park up their car at the end of their work day and sleep in the car if they don't have a couch to sleep on.
"They try and find somewhere that's coupon parking from 8 till 8."
Her own flat, which they have just signed a lease for, is $1225 a week she says it's expensive but she's happy to pay it just so she's not homeless.
She says she will leave Wellington after she graduates because of the unaffordable rental market, even though she'd rather stay.
"My partner and I have been trying for about a year to buy a house in Wellington and that's almost as impossible as renting a place."
The current weekly median rent in Wellington is $615 according to the latest Trade Me Rental Price Index, which is $25 per week higher than Auckland.
Wellington is the first region in New Zealand to surpass a weekly median rent of $600.
The Newmarket Business Association says there is no further threat to the area.