'Ouch!” says Colin Poultney. 'It's going to be a bit sore.” He has just received a letter from his property manager and it was all gloom.

The weekly rental on his two-bedroom Brookfield unit was going up more than 33 per cent – from $190 to $300. It came out of the blue and was a hammer blow to Colin's back pocket.

Brookfield renter Colin Poultney browses the property and rental section of The Weekend Sun. Photo: Supplied.

'The rent will soak up nearly three-quarters of my pay packet,” he admits.

Other bills will take care of the rest for this service station worker on the minimum adult wage of $14.75 an hour, about $450 to $500 in his hand a week.

'But it's a nice neighbourhood, opposite a school and around the corner from a supermarket. It's desirable,” says Colin. So while the rent increase hurts, he can understand it.

Across town in Pyes Pa, another family are reeling from market forces.

A couple who've been paying $290 a week for the past six years have had their rent reviewed. They'll soon be paying $400 – another 33 per cent increase.

'In all honesty, the market tells us it should be $450 to $475 if we were renting it right now. But that would be unfair,” says Dan Lusby, business manager of Tauranga Rentals. 'So we have compromised at $400.”

These were just two anomalies in a market riddled with anomalies, as both properties were bargain rentals to start with.

But today it's an overheated market, a landlord's market, because demand for rental housing is far outstripping supply. And that impacts directly on what tenants are expected to pay.

'For example, 80 people applied for one property in just one week,” says Dan. 'Even though it hadn't been rented, we had to cut it off. We just couldn't take any more applications. We had 80 to process.”

People are desperate for houses according to Dan. 'There is a housing crisis,” he admits.

He says the number of available rental homes available in Tauranga has fluctuated between 140 and 170 over the past three months.

'And there have been hundreds of applications,” says Dan. ”Perhaps 50 for each of them.” The norm is 10-to-20 applications for one property.

Every day people wander into Dan's office to file an application for a Tauranga rental property. 'Not for any specific property, they are just after ‘A' property. They just say: ‘let us know'.”

In the last year average rentals have gone up $33.58 a week from $354.33 in October last year to $387.91 last month.

Meanwhile Colin Poultney is pondering the extra $110 he will be paying out for rent in January.

'That's the grocery bill going to the landlord,” he says, 'or dinner out and the movies a couple of times with my partner.”

However, they're happy to have enjoyed a good rental deal for two years while others are scrambling for accommodation.

In the meantime, they're looking for the ‘right house' for their own home.