Reserve Bank policies get blame for lagging rents
Rodney Dickens, managing director and chief research officer at Strategic Risk Analysis, has done an analysis of rent trends compared to house values.
He found that while national average rents had only crept up over the last decade, house prices had surged ahead. He said the Reserve Bank underwriting low general price inflation had played a part. Interest rates have fallen and then stayed low since 2008.
Dickens said there was now a major disconnection between rents and house prices, and low interest rates were disguising the country’s housing affordability problem and enhancing the attractiveness of purchasing property, for investors and those considering whether to rent or buy.
He said: “This raises the possibility that rising interest rates down the track will play a significant part in correcting the yawning gap that has opened up between the level of national average house prices and the rent on the average rental property.”
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