Smaller may be the answer
Martin Dunn, who runs specialist apartment real estate agency City Sales, told the Herald on Sunday Auckland needed to consider downsizing to apartments as small as 20sq m.
First-home buyers were paying $450,000 for a decent house, which he called "prohibitive".
New apartments were selling for $7000- $9000 a sq m. The minimum requirements are 35sq m for a studio apartment, 45sq m for a one-bedroom apartment, 70sq m for a two-bedroom and 90sq m for a three-bedroom, meaning new apartments cost from about $280,000 to $720,000. If 20sq m apartments could be built, they could sell for as little as $160,000.
"People can be happy living in 20sq m studios. We could start supplying new studios at $160,000 and one-bedroom apartments at $140,000. That would be a wonderful move for Auckland," Dunn said.
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