Wait for the forced pop??

Bernard

Undoubtedly prices have increased, but the REINZ median (for the Auckland region) in 2000 was $110,000 and is currently about $260,000 about a 136% increase (a fair way off triple) but more than house prices which increased by 90% over the same time in the region.

If there had been unlimited greenfields land available prices would still be up significantly on 2000 prices due to increases in development costs and increases in council charges alone. I'd guesstimate that these alone would have added 70% to the cost of new sections (would give a median of $187,000).

But two other factors have driven prices up faster as well.

Part of the additional increase in Auckland must be due to the fact that since the 1970s subdivided/cross-leased rear sections kept a constant supply of cheap sections right across Auckland. The supply of these type of sections has ran dry over the past 10 years at the same time as many of the inner suburban areas that these sections were located in became more desirable (forcing up the price of these rear sections). It's no coincidence price rises coincided with infill sections running short.

The other factor driving prices is the fact that most new subdivisions are aimed at mid-higher end housing. When was the last time a sizable subdivision aimed at 100m2 homes with detached garages was developed? Maybe 1985? And there's the problem. Throughout the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s a large proportion of new developments were smaller homes often built on spec by group builders. After the 70s property crash most of these firms disappeared and many of the ones that survived morphed into mid range home builders.

There is really no demand for cheap undeveloped sections because people who have limited financial resources simply are not interested (or perhaps not able to arrange the finance or not able to organise themselves) to build their own home. Without the housing companies building these homes for low income buyers they just won't get built.

Making land available is not the only solution to providing more affordable housing. Large chunks of city fringe land is now occupied expensive lifestyle blocks so don't necessarily expect lots of cheap land just because it has been rezoned. You also need someone to build the houses - spec firms are going to be the only ones who will build these type of homes but at present few low end spec builders exist.

So don't expect rezoning lots of land today will correct overnight the effects of the constrained supply that has existed since the 1970s. Certainly don't expect it to cause house prices to fall, preventing them from rising further is a better aim.

Whilst I was living in the UK, there was a 'competition' launched re: 'affordable housing'
(2005).
This sort of pottered along, and I did not follow the outcomes (it suffered from having a politician as a spokesperson)

http://www.designformanufacture.info/lessonslearnt.htm

I don't advocate a similar competition, but I do wonder if those of you who 'know how to build houses' would be able to use material from this competition.

Clearly our building methods/tolerances are different (earthquakes etc), and we're rightly terrified of new building methods (leaky homes), but maybe materials such as
"Panelised Wall & Roof System" could serve us better that frame building
e.g. http://www.wood-newton.com/services/sustainable-housing.php

Make them here though!!!!!!!

Fantastic shorts, so people who want affordable housing, have to take on commuting costs of potenially above $200 a week (parking + gas +insurance +maint) and incure time costs of 1-2 hours a day.

That simply doesn't work out in any equation even if you zero rate the time (which is stupid, because thats time they really should be spending with their wife and kids, or hobbies or whatever).

And it just ends up pushing the low income families that would normally live there further out. Yay for gentrification. And good luck finding low salary workers, or potenitally blue colar workers for in the city as with low salaries they wouldn't be able to afford the commuting costs.