Renters United is an advocacy group that organises renters and campaigns to make renting in New Zealand better for everyone. We see decent housing as a basic human right and our broken renting system as a barrier to realising this right for all.
In 2026, Renters United worked with ActionStation to collect thousands of renters’ stories and analysed these in the Aotearoa Renters Survey. This comes nearly 10 years after our 2017 The People’s Review of Renting (pdf, 5.6mb), our first partnership with ActionStation.
The results were stark. Rents are still too high, rentals are still cold and mouldy, and renters feel powerless to take on their landlords. The survey found:
- 90.6% of renters have not recieved or asked for a rent reduction in the last 6 months
- The return of no-cause evictions as well as the general insecurity of renting from a third party has increased renters’ fear about speaking up.
- 78.4% of respondents estimated spending 30% and over of their weekly income on rent. 11.5% of respondents reported spending 80% and over of their weekly income on rent.
- 91.4% of respondents had either never used a 14-day notice or never heard of it, despite the many stories of things not getting fixed.
The sad thing is, these stories sounded the same as nearly 10 years before. Stories in both of these reports spoke of a power imbalance in the relationship between landlords and renters. The result of these interrelated problems is that renters are second- class citizens. Renters cannot reliably realise their rights to healthy and stable housing, as can property owners.
Alongside the Aotearoa Renters Survey, we released A Better Future for Renters. This sets out our vision for a a fairer rental system in Aotearoa.
Since 2014, Renters United has been a strong advocate for renters across the country. Together we’ve won:
- Improvements to the quality of our homes;
- Fair rent in the middle of a pandemic;
- Clear guidelines to protect our privacy during tenancy applications; and
- so much more to come…
If you want to be part of a future where renting is better for everyone then join the movement at rentersunited.org.nz/join!