The national median housing rent increased by $35 a week in the year to March, Auckland rents up by $50 a week

Not to mention that ultra low interest rates led to stupidly high house prices that cannot generate any kind of reasonable yield at current interest rates. Obviously the first thing a property investor will do is raise the price, but their ability to do that will be very limited. 

Every morning I walk my dog past the house my wife and I used to rent in 2018/2019 before we bought our own place. 

If I recall, we paid about $500 per week to rent. 3 bed, 2 bath townhouse in a fairly convenient part of town. Just the two of us and one of the rooms used as a home office, the other kept spare for guests. It was honestly a great property for us at the time, and although $500 wasn't cheap then for rent it was reasonable enough considering the modern nature of the property and nice area.

That same house now clearly has multiple families (all of one origin) living in it. Same with several of the other houses in the row. 

I don't know exactly what it would be renting for, but similar properties in the area are going for the best part of $700 p/w. 

How can a young couple, or an existing Kiwi family, compete (and then also save for their own home) when we are importing people who are willing to cram, 6, 8, 10 to a modestly sized house in order to seek a better life, and also accept lower wages in the process? 

I wonder how many people are still left to arrive after Labour's furious rubberstamping of visas last year?  Is there any information on the number of visa applications, vs how many have arrived?  For all we know, there may be another 250,000 people on the way.

Inflation - due to the out of control money printing ?

True, but we're still working on how many people may be squeezed into a 3 b/r house. 

I think we were hitting 30 in Auckland not that long ago in the news.  Given they were paying for the privilege to come here, I don't think we've hit the ceiling (pun intended) yet!

There's still plenty of juice to be squeezed. All of the landlords I know in Auckland are getting multiple enquiries on vacancies in the first day just by word of mouth.

Those who are already de-juiced will be going on the social housing waitlist or back with mum and dad.

Yes this is the situation. Cheerleading house price increases is also cheerleading young Kiwis to leave. They have no reason to have loyalty/patrionism anymore and NZ doesn't deserve to keep them.

The Situation in Australia, is not much better from the housing perspective

Average rent in Melbourne is $589 a week, lower than all of NZ's average, let alone Auckland.  Also vacancy rates are rising in Melbourne so pressure is coming off rent rises. 

Melbourne has also seen a 21% increase in the number of first home buyers in the last year, while house prices have only gained 1.1%.

So higher wages, lower rents, affordable houses, better lifestyle. Why would you stay in NZ?

It's ok soon landlords will have their tax breaks reinstated and they will slow down rent increases...

Assuming the 8.3% inflation continues in Auckland (which it may well do with the AC rates) the rent will go up to $865 next year. Still a big jump. 

For years we have hid inflation in assets.

And it could be argued that this caused the dangerous feedback loop of 'low inflation' --> low interest rates.

I'm no expert when it comes to understanding inflation calculations but hopefully there is some attention being given to a more appropriate weighting of accommodation costs.

Landlords dont pay tax weekly, so they wont see any financial relief from their cash drain until they do their tax return next year. 

There might be a small tax reduction for landlords in the coming months. It is a tax reduction, not a tax break, because no other service provider or business in the country is expected to pay tax before interest deductions. In the meantime, landlords are having to pay higher interest rates, higher maintenance costs, higher rates, higher insurance, and higher capital losses.

That some people think there is something sinister going on when these costs filter through to tenants either shows an ignorance in rudimentary economics, or a sense of entitlement.

Not all landlords are bitter and/or angry, only those who thought it was a no-lose enterprise.

The best thing we could do for the rental market is stop Parmac funding blood pressure medication

It's a double-edged sword - tenants can also use the stats to support Tenancy Tribunal actions claiming increases above market levels.

Rents are higher in low socioeconomic areas because the risk of renting to those tenants is higher.  Landlords have to budget for higher repairs and maintenance, non payment of rent, Tenancy Tribunal applications, eviction orders, meth clean ups, fixing damaged properties, cleaning bills, dump fees, debt collectors .....

It's always seemed like a self fulfilling feedback loop to me. I suspect the number of landlords who value their house at a quartile lower than it's actual value is significantly lower than those who value it higher. New rent is set, pushes up quartile values, next landlord rinses and repeats and rent continues its upward climb.