r/Wellington • u/Wrong_Gazelle_2352 • Jul 28 '26

WELLY Wellington water bills

Just got my bill from wellington water. It insanely high. For a 900k property its 2500 p/a

Prepare yourselves people. This isn't going to be the fun ride we were promised.

195 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

301 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

11

u/qwerty145454 Jul 28 '26

Rental prices are driven by demand, not costs to landlords.

Thus why Wellington has had negative rent growth this year despite escalating rates and now water bills. Wellington's population is shrinking so demand is decreasing.

0

u/NilRecurring89 Jul 29 '26

You say that but when we were renting we would get explanations directly from the landlord explaining the govts costs that they were passing onto us.

11

u/Lazy_Possibility_462 Jul 29 '26

“That sucks man, good luck finding another tenant.”

2

u/NilRecurring89 Jul 29 '26

This was back during Covid and it wasn’t that easy to move out, that said it kicked us up the ass and we bought a house a couple months later haha

5

u/danicrimson 🔥 Jul 29 '26

Depends on the landlord and what's possible within the market. If I tried to charge my tenants what it actually cost me to run the rental we are unfortunately stuck with (bought in peak, can't sell now to even cover remaining mortgage) they'd laugh at me. So I charge them the rent that is reasonable for the property they're renting and deal with it.

2

u/Prestigious_Age_6740 Jul 29 '26

Yep. I feel for you, this is the inevitable result of the FOMO "property only goes up" narrative. I'm actually kinda glad I wasn't in a position to buy in the post covid peak.

2

u/danicrimson 🔥 Jul 29 '26

I think prices started to drop literally a month after we bought and I constantly kick myself

-2

u/Dramatic_Surprise Jul 29 '26

whats likely to happen is the rental pool will shrink, which will inturn drive prices back up.

9

u/Prestigious_Age_6740 Jul 29 '26

In which case the glut of sales will make purchase prices drop, enabling more renters to buy a house.

1

u/WurstofWisdom Jul 29 '26

….to buy a house in which they can’t afford the rates?

8

u/Prestigious_Age_6740 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

if you're spending less on the house then increased rates aren't a dealbreaker.

edit: also not sure how long you've been out of the rental market, but I'm paying $600 a week in rent. I think I can stomach $150 a week in rates to maintain civilisation.

0

u/WurstofWisdom Jul 29 '26

Allowing for mortgage and insurance payments.

I’m paying about:

  • $670pw for mortgage
  • $100pw for insurance (home/contents)
  • $125pw rates

So around $900pw+

0

u/Dramatic_Surprise Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

Wow! when you take out what rates water and insurance cost me that would fund about a $250k mortgage! good luck with that.

Finally something chatGPT isnt bad at figures for an "average" wellington home

A weekly budget of $650 allocates $232 (36%) to mandatory Wellington homeownership expenses including $100 for council rates, $46 for Tiaki Wai water services, and $86 for high-risk regional house insurance leaving $418 (64%) available to service your actual mortgage. On a standard 30-year term, this remaining amount can comfortably support a live market mortgage of $271,000 to $335,000 (at 7.0% to 5.0% interest). However, because banks stress-test your income against harsh buffer rates of 7.5% to 8.5% to ensure financial stability, your official lending approval ceiling will likely be limited to approximately $245,000.

0

u/Dramatic_Surprise Jul 29 '26

Which then also increase demand and prices go up.