A relentless stream of renters are begging, bargaining and bribing their way into properties scarcer than gold. Something's got to give.

New Housing Minister Phil Twyford has several plans to make life easier for renters, but has ruled out rent controls.

Instead the new minister is clear that in his view the only way to seriously keep rents in check is to greatly increase supply.

But that doesn't mean he wants the Government to stay out of the equation: he thinks it has a serious role to play in both increasing supply and softening the rough edges of the private market.

BRADEN FASTIER/STUFF Housing Minister Phil Twyford: "Under the current laws, particularly when there is a shortage of housing and it's a landlord's market, the market can be harsh and oppressive to people."

By the end of this year, Twyford wants to introduce legislation to reform the Residential Tenancies Act, our main tenancy law.

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The key planks of these planned reforms will be an end to letting fees that are charged to tenants, a requirement that rents can be raised only once a year instead of every six months, an end to no-reason terminations, and the required inclusion of a formula for how those rent rises will be calculated on every tenancy agreement.

He is also interested in looking into whether practices like "rental bidding" can be abolished, but is not sure if this can be achieved. In fact given the reforms were planned while Labour was in opposition, some may not make the final cut.

"Under the current laws, particularly when there is a shortage of housing and it's a landlord's market, the market can be harsh and oppressive to people," Twyford said.

"What we need are laws that bring the best out in people, and encourage their better side. And that's why modernising the tenancy laws will be about a set of rules that work for landlords and tenants - and encourage for instance longer term tenancies, which are good for families and good for landlords."

CHRIS MCKEEN/STUFF Rachel Osborne is a single mother of three who initially moved back in with her parents to save money, but has been unable to re-enter the rental market.

Twyford has ruled out rent controls, which he says is "bad policy", instead arguing the only real way to keep rents in check is to increase supply.

"Rent controls ... drive investment out of the market and discourages landlords from properly maintaining properties. It keeps some rents low, the ones covered by rent controls, but not others. It does nothing to tackle the basic supply and demand pressures."

Fixing supply will alleviate problems like rental bidding and go some way to stop illegal discrimination against tenants.

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"Rental bidding is purely a symptom of the landlord having all the bargaining chips and the tenants having no power."

So how do you increase supply? The Government's KiwiBuild plan is to build 100,000 affordable private homes over ten years. This would help free up rentals by moving more tenants into private homes.

In Wellington, where the problem is particularly acute, Twyford has begun discussions with mayor Justin Lester about what a new "housing accord" would look like - a kind of mini-unitary plan for the capital.

"I want it to be comprehensive, everything from homelessness and emergency housing right through the consenting and zoning system."

Zoning will likely be the toughest point of contention.

Central Wellington lacks much undeveloped space to expand out onto, but many city-fringe suburbs contain restrictive height limitations and other controls on property.

In the meantime, some landlords have threatened to leave the market as a result of proposed tax changes and the already-passed Healthy Homes Guarantee bill, which will require many of them to either install insulation or new heaters.

National's Housing Spokesman Michael Woodhouse new rules on landlords could easily see them exit the market and reduce the supply just when it is needed most.

"Certainly the best thing not to do is to make it harder for landlords to offer their properties," Woodhouse said.

"We wouldn't be following these punitive policies for landlords that they have introduced or said that they would introduce, that are making people like Andrew King from the Property Investors Federation say it's just getting too hard for the overwhelming majority of landlords who only own one or two properties with things like capital gains tax and ring fencing, or the unknown costs from the Healthy Homes Guarantee bill.

"These are not all sophisticated profit-driven landlords - these are nurses and doctors and teachers.

But Twyford doesn't believe many landlords will be literally leaving their homes empty, meaning the sum total of housing available shouldn't significantly change.

"Ghost houses - houses left empty by speculators - only happen when you've got high levels of capital gain. Under this Government's policies, we will get supply and demand back in balance and you simply won't see the kind of year-on-year capital gains that we have seen," Twyford said.

Woodhouse agreed that supply was the largest issue and said the Government did have levers to pull that could increase supply.

In the short term another Government MP is also keen to help.

Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson is advising any tenants who believe their rent has risen well above the market rent in their area to consider taking their landlord to the Tenancy Tribunal.

We'd love to hear your story - good or bad - about the rental market and what issues you think we need to explore. Email us at newstips@stuff.co.nz