High costs pushing more homeowners to look for homestay students and flatmates

More Auckland homeowners are seeking homestay students or flatmates to cope with the rising cost of living coupled with high mortgage rates.

Companies connecting families to international homestay students say they are seeing an increase in the number of people registering as host families, and more doing so for financial reasons.

Erikah Iyama, who lives with her partner and 18-month-old baby, said her mortgage repayment went up by $300 a week after refixing her rates last month.

The 37-year-old has found a homestay student after registering with multiple agencies.

"We wouldn't have done it if we didn't have to, but we're not gonna complain about it or anything, because it's what we have to do to make it work, and it's a relief, it is a financial relief," she said.

For $325 a week, Iyama provides two meals a day on weekdays, and three meals on weekends to her homestay student.

The money was tight before the student arrived, she said.

"There was about a month between the [mortgage] increasing and her arriving, and that was stressful, that was like having to put bills and stuff on credit cards because of the increased costs," she said.

She intended to keep this going for as long as interest rates stay high, she said.

Rachel Hamlin, who runs a company which matches host families to students in Auckland, said there had been a noticeable increase in the number of families approaching them over the past few months.

Hamlin was also seeing more people looking to host due to financial pressures.

"The difference that I've seen is that the type of people that are becoming host families, the type of people that are looking to become host families, they all still are obviously looking for a good cultural experience, but also another source of income is becoming increasingly important to them," she said.

There appeared to be increasing diversity in the experiences and life stages of hosts, she said, with pensioners also looking to host so that they have company as well as additional income.

Families told her that the money helped, she said.

"It is absolutely helping with the mortgage, people are paying higher interest rates, mortgage rates have gone up, and so they have said that they do want to have some extra income and this is a way they can do that," she said.

Caesey Petterson, who also worked for a homestay matching service provider, said she was seeing more people registering to host homestays for the first time.

Of the 600 hosts in Auckland, 120 had registered in the past three months, she said.

Petterson said some of the families appear to rely on the income to meet costs.

"They are ensuring that those rooms are full, they are constantly calling to make sure we have the next student lined up, because they cannot risk that room being empty and the money not coming in," she said.

Meanwhile, some first-time homeowners are also renting out rooms to keep up with mortgage repayments.

Jamie Wood, who bought a three-bedroom home in West Auckland with her partner three years ago, said they always had flatmates.

But, whereas in the past renting out helped the couple save some money, it was now a necessity.

"When we first bought the place, we could've afforded to not have at least one of our rooms rented out, but [now] we definitely need to have both rooms filled," she said.

For North Shore first-time homeowner Nicole, who did not want her full name used, her bank loan required her to have flatmates.

Nicole bought the house two months ago for $920,000, but she had only managed to find one flatmate so far.

She said she was struggling to keep up with the repayment of about $1000 a week.

"So at the moment, I'm just using the cashback from the bank, and when that runs out, I don't know what to do," she said.

Nicole said she may need to ask her family for help or find a second job, if she was unable to find a flatmate in the coming months.