About 100 rental properties have disappeared in Queenstown in 12 months, while more than a quarter of properties may well be intentionally unoccupied for most of the year.
The Queenstown Lakes District Council has released a report over the rental housing shortage in the district and finding the root cause is proving a challenge.
Arrowtown economist Benje Patterson has been looking at the issues using report data from Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment rental bonds, Trade Me property sales director Gavin Lloyd and labour market snapshot data.
Mr Patterson found close to 100 less rental homes available last November, compared to November 2021, while data from Mr Lloyd showed a 49% drop in rental listings between December 2021 and December last year.
However, about 1081 more homes were consented last year than were needed to meet the population growth demand.
Accounting for new housing stock and new short-stay accommodation listings, Mr Patterson said data suggested about 649 new houses were built above and beyond the needs of population growth and short-stay demand.
"The question we don’t have a certain answer to is what are these new houses being used for?
"It is likely many are unoccupied and have been constructed as holiday dwellings or homes to retire to in the future.
"The most recent data available on unoccupied dwellings, from 2018, tells us approximately 27% of all houses in the district are unoccupied."
The labour market snapshot data showed job numbers in the Queenstown-Lakes had recovered to close to the pre-Covid peak, in December 2019.
However, the hospitality industry had 1200 fewer staff now than in summer 2019-20, while a recent Queenstown Business Chamber of Commerce survey found one in three businesses listed the housing situation as their biggest barrier to achieving optimal staffing levels at present.
Queenstown mayor Glyn Lewers said the data provided an important insight to support decision making and fuel a "united focus" from council, local businesses, organisations and government to find solutions.
"We are acutely aware of the related impacts on the labour market and local businesses that is linked with our district’s housing challenge," he said.
"The report tells us that while building houses is an important piece of the puzzle, building more will not solve the problem alone.
We must tackle this from many angles and in partnership with those who can help our community realise sustained change in the makeup of our housing market ..."
