After six years of declining student numbers at the University of Otago, it is a renter's market in the most popular student streets of North Dunedin. Carla Green reports on what that means for landlords, and for students.
To let signs dot the streets of North Dunedin as university student numbers continue to fall and landlords struggle to find student tenants.
In Hyde St this week, a group of students sitting outside one flat was unanimous: ‘‘It's easier'' to find a flat this year.
The flat was third-year University of Otago student Dylan Hall's. In previous years, Mr Hall recalled, ‘‘people used to sign in June or July''.‘‘Anywhere in party central areas,'' Mr Hall said, referring to Castle and Hyde Sts in particular.
But Mr Hall had signed his Hyde St lease in November. And fourth-year student Rachel Duignan, who lives a few doors down, said she signed her lease in October.
She said rents might not have gone down. In general, she thought, they had actually gone up, but she agreed with Mr Hall.‘‘There are a lot more empty flats [this year],'' she said.
Paul Reuben, director of private property management company Student Accommodation Ltd, said he had noticed it, too.‘‘The major factor affecting all of this is less tenants to go around - less students,'' he said.
Over the past five years, university student numbers have been on a steady downturn - dropping 1510 (or 7.7%) equivalent full-time students (Efts) in six years, from 19,661 Efts in 2010 to a projected 18,156 Efts for 2016.
Mr Reuben said he had been tracking the decline in student numbers. And the corresponding drop in student tenants was therefore not a surprise.
‘‘We have predicted this arriving for the past two to three years,'' he said.
‘‘[There's] a definite downturn ... this year with the fact that all the halls of residence were not full last year - that has a flow-on effect.''
For Mr Reuben, that means about a dozen of the 300-odd flats he manages are not yet leased. After six years in the property management business, he had never had that many unleased flats this late in the season, he said.
Mr Reuben knew some rents had gone up, but he had warned the landlords of the properties he managed not to put the prices up ‘‘unless there was a very early demand for their properties - and we're talking about established properties with names''.
Of course, the season was ‘‘not quite over yet''. It was hard to know exactly what was going on with the student flatting market until all the students were back. But as it stood now, ‘‘tenants are certainly in the driving seat''.
Otago University Students' Association student advocate Philippa Keaney said the association had been trying to communicate exactly that to students - this renting season, they were in the driving seat.
Ms Keaney hoped the change in the student rental market would shift the power imbalance between student tenants and landlords, but it was hard to be sure if it would, she said. But OUSA was encouraging student renters to be ‘‘much more selective''.
‘‘It's a real opportunity for students to empower themselves as renters who play a really important role in the market,'' she said. ‘‘Because they don't realise that, often, either.
‘‘The market depends on their money, so they should start asking to get their money's worth.''
Like Mr Reuben, other people in the property management industry have also identified a shift in the student rental market. But they have different hypotheses for why so many student flats remain unlet.
University director of accommodation services James Lindsay believed students were just waiting longer to sign leases.‘‘We have recently noticed that more students, compared to previous years, are arriving in Dunedin without having flats signed up,'' he said in a statement.
The university had organised an event on February 23 - called ‘‘Flat Chat'' - to ‘‘help match returning students with good flatting accommodation''.
All the university's flats were already let, the university said.
Property Management Works director Denise Robinson said the 60 flats her company managed in the student neighbourhood were all leased. But, ‘‘it was later when they were all let'' this year, she said.
She also disagreed with Mr Reuben about the cause - the driving force behind the market shift was not student numbers, but the fact students were looking further afield than in previous years.
The business had rented about 30 flats to students outside the student neighbourhood this year, she said. That was unusual.
‘‘They're certainly not taking the properties that you would've thought, or that would've gone three or four years ago,'' she said. ‘‘They don't have to take the worst property any more; there's plenty of choice, and the choice is good.''
