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Prime Minister says Govt is 'opening the door' for families locked out of home ownership

Property
Prime Minister says Govt is 'opening the door' for families locked out of home ownership

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declares that the Government is "opening the door to families locked out of home ownership" by building affordable homes.

And the first ones in the KiwiBuild scheme have officially gone on the block as of Monday, with the announcement that the ballot for the first 18 of them has opened.

Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford's promising more announcements this week regarding the first KiwiBuild 'off the plans' houses.

Of the 1,000 KiwiBuild houses intended to be produced over the next year, some 800 or so of those are intended to be 'off the plan'.

The first 18 homes up for ballot at the McLennan Development in Auckland are billed as "warm, modern and architecturally-designed stand-alone homes, made up of 12 three-bedroom homes selling for $579,000 and six four-bedroom homes selling for $649,000".

The ballot runs for four weeks, closing on October 5 and with the winners to be announced soon after..

Ardern says KiwiBuild is "restoring the Kiwi dream" of home ownership to thousands of families who have been priced out of the housing market in Auckland and around the country.

“Our Government is opening the door to families locked out of home ownership by building affordable starter homes where the market failed to do so.

"The ballot that opens today gives those that pre-qualify an equal chance of being able to buy their own KiwiBuild home

“KiwiBuild is the major plank in our Government’s plan to make housing more affordable. We have also changed the law to stop overseas speculators pricing New Zealanders out of the market.

“After nine years of neglect under National we now have a Government that is making affordable home-ownership a priority for the tens of thousands of New Zealanders missing out. Today’s ballot shows that help is on the way.”

Twyford said another 12 properties already under construction at the McLennan development will be completed before Christmas, including seven terraced two-bedroom homes and five four-bedroom homes. Next year a further 58 mainly three bedroom homes will be built at the Papakura location.

“This is just the beginning. Later this week our Government will be announcing the start of the next tranche of KiwiBuild homes – the first homes to be bought off the plans.”

Phil Twyford urged anyone considering entering the ballot for KiwiBuild homes at McLennan to get a thorough understanding of the property first and speak to their bank manager.

To ensure KiwiBuild homes go to the people they are intended for, applicants must:

  • Be a first-time buyer or a ‘second chancer’
  • Have an income of less than $120,000 for a single buyer, or no more than $180,000 for more than one purchaser,
  • Be a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident, or a resident visa holder who is ‘ordinarily resident in New Zealand’,
  • And intend to own and live in the home as their primary place of residence for at least three years.

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.

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76 Comments

Modern, architecturally designed?...
Yeah right!
Sack the architect.
They are a rectangle box that will not suit a family and will have very little capital gain with so many on small pocket sized section.
Unbelievable that there are so many gullible people that still beleive that they are going to be getting a bargain!

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Oh look, somebody mentions Kiwibuild and The Lad starts screeching like an undisciplined three year old. Never would have expected that!

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Don't say that, I have family who are autistic and it is an insult to them.

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Fair point. Sorry to anybody on the spectrum that was insulted by my comment. I've changed it.

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you are one negative individual.
this is a great opportunity for the tens and tens of thousands of young kiwis in Auckland locked out of home ownership.

We all know you hate the government and hate Kiwibuild. What would YOU do to enable people the chance to get on the housing ladder?

Or you don't think that's important?

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A more palatable solution would be to stop sacrificing the Kiwi lifestyle in a pointless exercise to cram more and more people into Auckland!

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Judging by how hideous some of them are they probably are architecturally designed. Everyone I know who has dealt with one has come away frustrated.

But an Auckland renter doesn't care what roof pitch the house has. The problem with them is the terrible value for money; tiny floor area, tiny land area yet far from anywhere location.

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I agree with you for once, They will be a commodity if there are thousands of houses that are essentially the same. This puts me off buying these cookie cutter houses. Doesn't make sense as an investment but if they are cheaper at least people looking for a home might be able to afford one even if its not great. I for one will look elsewhere and hope the added supply will drop the price of other houses.

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One thing that caught my eye was the thickness of the concrete slab. I assume they’re concrete floors. Are they dug out and poured or do they build the house on top of flagstone pavers?

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Just seen on TV1 the spacious open plan living!
You have got to be kidding, they have miniscule living and not becoming of a 3 or 4 bedroom home.
Look, if you get excited about these homes then that is great.
If you don’t own a home and you are going into the ballot for 18 of these boxes then I suppose that is exciting for you.
Just don’t expect them to accommodate any children at any stage unless they are in a cot.
It is sad that this is all you can get for $600k but you can not blame the man for this.
I buy houses that are double the size of these shoeboxes and for half the cost and are not thrown up like these ones are.
Each to their own and good luck living so far out of Auckland and on the motorway every morning.
KiwiBuild we are up and running only 99,982 to go!!!

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You buy houses that are 200+ sqm and rent them out?

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Yes I have got a few.
They are all positively geared but they have been bought under true market value.

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You give me a banking crisis headache as you talk like a dalek!

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I finally agree with you on something- it is sad that that is all you can get for $600k. Assuming you voted National then you are slightly to blame.
I wouldn’t pay $600k for these in Papakura, but in Mt Albert or Mt Roskill that would be an amazing deal.

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They just announced 10000 houses will be built in Mt roskill in the next 15 years. Worst case they will do a lot more than National ever did.

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Alot of those houses will be going to migrants in Mt Roskill. Kiwi build certainly ain't for kiwis - the immigration consultants are already advising their clients to buy houses through trusts after immigrating to NZ and get a Kiwibuild in their own name, its the only country in the world where residents that are born and bred in Kiwi land go homeless while the state builds houses for new migrants....

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Unlikely these migrants have enough money for kiwibuild but not enough for a better house isn’t it?

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There are immigration consultants with an Asian clientele, advising their clients how to get a kiwibuild house. I know of 4 that have entered the lottery. Under the regulations if your assets are owned in a trust you are eligible. This gives migrants an unfair advantage because previous home ownership in another country isn't checked and also migration consultants have been advising them to accumulate their NZ assets within trust structures so they can get kiwibuild.

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Kiwi build should only be for NZ citizens born in NZ, not the 70K each year flooding into the country.

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No, it should be for all NZ citizens regardless of birthright or naturalised, but I'd agree with excluding those on residency visas.

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One of the applicants only got citizenship quite recently, shes 60 years and has been here 8 years, is that fair if she wins the lottery?
There will be other applicants with families who have lived here their entire lives.

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Then change the path to citizenship.

Defining some citizens as being less worthy than other citizens... maybe you should move to the South in the US, you may find a better fit there.

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Wait until its plastered all over TV - consultants advise migrants in 50's to put all assets under trust structures when immigrating to NZ so they can get better deals on pensions and pensioner homes because NZ government doesn't look at asset accumulated under these structures (only those transferred from personal ownership into the trust structure) and as a bonus you can now get a kiwibuild house paid for by NZ tax payers!
What a rort!
The thing is all these immigrants defend these rorts!!!!
At the same point in time NZ has the highest rate of homelessness in the OECD and young kiwi families struggle to own a home. Kiwis born and bred in NZ are homeless because of high levels of immigration. These filthy immigrants rorting the system should just be told to leave the country and let young kiwi families have a fair go.

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...which begs the question. How do we asset and income test our recent arrivals for welfare or care assistance these days? It's not like they all come from countries who cooperate in this area?

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I am in immigrant that has citizenship, and I do not condone or defend these "rorts". I'd far prefer that everyone carries their own weight, and are responsible for their own decisions.

The homelessness thing in NZ, well, a lot of that has to do with how NZ defines homelessness as compared to other OECD countries.

The immigrant thing. Either change the immigration rules, or accept the results of the rules as they exist. Accepting an immigrant, then booting the immigrant for nothing more than you don't like the immigrant, well... again, there may be other locations that have a better match for your views.

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The homelessness rate in NZ is based on international studies, these studies are impartial to any particular country.
Its happened in other countries and can happen in NZ. At the end of the day if you can't own your own home and can't get a roof over your head because immigrants are flooding into the country and pinching houses then it is time to tell them to leave. Australia routinely kicks out immigrants with citizenship for misconduct.

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the "international studies" are using data provided from each country. Some countries use different criteria than other countries, hence the inconsistency in the data. Yes, homelessness is very much a bad thing. What is considered homeless here in NZ can be quite different than the definition elsewhere.

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I would start your education on the OECD homeless issues here: https://www.feantsa.org/en/news/2017/02/10/oecd-publishes-statistics-on…

The second sentence on this page reads "Although the data are useful for comparing the data collection methods used in each country, as explained in the report, the data themselves are not easily comparable due to different counting methods, meaning that the figures should not be taken as a "league table" of homelessness."

I would further recommend reading the linked report, and in particular, the first section titled "Definitions and methodology" which notes that every country reports different statistics due to different definitions of homelessness. There was no international standard, but instead each country made their own definition. Japan included only sleeping rough. NZ includes people that are in temporary accomodations along with quite a few other elements. To me, this seems to have some partiality to some countries. You evidently have come to a different conclusion.

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Stay here just 8 years and get 15 years superannuation and health care. What a joke!

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Seriously, can not see how the rectangle box shown in the photo above can be 600k.
Absolutely basic, linear weatherboard and would be very cheap to build.
Would be $1500 per square metre to build on the high side.
Is there a garage?
There is no value at all in these boxes miles from Auckland.
If you like them then go for it, you might be disappointed.
If these are $649k miles from Auckland then You aren’t going to get much in Auckland are you?

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Well TM2 you might want to sit down, I present as evidence the entire Auckland housing market of the last half decade. Have fun because seriously 600k for these homes is really, really low. Better yet check out the new homes out Hobsonville & Whenuapai. I lived near the airfield for a short contract with the million plus new builds opposite and they were not half as nice as the kiwibuild properties, oh and there was a timber treatment plant that did nightly burn offs closer than the airfield to these properties that set off an asthma attack every time, (hence we moved soon after and will head back down after the contract completion). If the land area & home is not actively a medical concern that could kill them it is a good deal in Auckland and better than many of the rentals up here. A few fellow engineers brought further out in the 750k range for properties of much less quality. It takes them about an hour to travel in everyday, but by comparison that is still over an hour faster than the public transport system they were using before. The goal posts have moved and the ladder has been pulled up.

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Pacifica, I sat down!
They are not worth $649k, you are being totally ripped off!
Would be interesting to see the land and build costing.
Wouldn’t even look at touching them with a barge pole for that price, due to location, size of section, design and build look.

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Pacifica calling these nice or quality is quite frankly bizarre. If your fellow engineers are having to purchase less quality dwellings somewhere closer to Whangarei or Hamilton something is sadly astray, possibly engineering salaries /. The MAN 2 cops a fair whack of criticism on this site, possibly because he resides south of the Bombay Hills, but his comments are consistent and invariably stack up.

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Engineering salaries.. or almost all Auckland salaries? Or perhaps the Auckland houses prices are the issue?

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Was reading yesterday of police salaries. Sobering stuff...the salaries would be okay were it not for Auckland's mismanaged housing outcomes. But in the light of house prices in Auckland,

After you've been attested, you'll earn a salary of $56,106, with a total remuneration of around $62,791for the first year out of the college. On average, constables in their first year also earn around $6,500 in additional payments such as allowances and overtime. Further pay increases will depend on your role, your shift patterns, and promotion.

The average salary for an officer working in their fifth year is around $61,228 with an average remuneration of around $68,435, not including additional payments such as allowances and overtime.

It's no wonder we face shortages in police, teaching, nursing etc.

I disagree with those who think the answer is simply to import cheaper ones from overseas, rather than addressing fundamental issues here. The same folk will often argue for high salaries for politicians: "they need to be high to attract people of the right caliber."

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These McLennan Development KiwiBuild boxes don’t seem to have a garage going by the artist impressions and photo above.
Nowhere to put one either!
So you have one car parking space out the front?
Yeah these are an absolute bargain!

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...you really seriously think where going be driving cars much longer? Personal use cars are going to priced off the market fuel wise well before electric has got up to speed.

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500 groups visited the first open homes.. not sure what you are harping on about

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Of course there are going to be plenty of people looking at them.
There were thousands that look thru “The Block” houses when they are open as well.
Media promotes like nothing else.
How many bidders are there on “The Block” houses when they go to auction?
Yes they will sell them because of the demand for housing from First Home Buyers!
Are they getting good value, not from my unbiased view!

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Your Unbiased view? ROFLMAO WTF BBQ. I thought NZdan was good at delivering a line with a straight face, but I can't imagine him topping that.

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So you've criticized the design and don't believe there is demand - for the same houses that you claimed would not be built.
"Not one will be built - Mark my words"- You said.
Your words were marked - and you were wrong - again.

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A bathroom with no window - really?

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Do you like birds watch you take a shower..;)

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A decent skylight and an extractor fan tho. There are a bunch of little things that I'd want to do straight away if I got one of them to make them a bit more liveable, but there is nothing wrong with them really. Build quality looks good, meets current building code so a major step up in warmth and dryness from 90% of Auckland housing stock.

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My kid played football there a few weeks ago, so had a wander around. Quite a nice area really.

But the all of the KB numbers don't add up.

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Kiwibuild 16 homes - Yeah Right! These where built by the previous government and now called Kiwibuild what a joke are we all so easily fooled ?? For God's sake wake up NZ this is no more than propaganda marketing for the COL and PT.

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Don’t understand why Barfoot’s are marketing them?
Surely that is $25k out of the developers profit and therefore 25k extra to the buyer?
If there is so much interest going to be in it, there are going to be far more than 18 buyers competing for all of them so why does it need an agent to be marketing them?
Easy money for Barfoots isn’t it $450,000 for 4 weeks of open days!

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The agent is required to ensure that all the landscaping plants , looks like 6 griselinea along a single wall are not removed during the multiple open days. .

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500 groups of would be FHBs with nice fat kiwisaver accounts for deposits and maybe access to homestart grants went thru and most dutifully wrote their real names and contact details down on the open home register... How much is that worth to a RE agent with stock to sell?

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Do we not have a shortage of land in Auckland? Why are we building single level boxes with a small section. Its like we're allergic to building up in the city. Surely better to be building multistory townhouses, with parks nearby & in turn more walkable communities.

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Well Twyford is falling behind on progress so he had to rush this first lot out. Building multilevel would have just added build time. I’m sure as time progresses they’ll head down that track.

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The plans were already in place, but the builder didn't get credit to continue, so the government stepped in and especially for the name of the road .. which they thought was apt for fhb being liberated from the housing crisis

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It's incredibly expensive to build upwards. Way more than greenfields actually.

Most people think it's the reverse.

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What about when factoring in the cost of required infrastructure, including roads, motorway etc?

For example, intensifying out in Huapai / Kumeu is driving the need to start widening all the roads from there to the Northwestern Motorway. Compare that to the added infrastructure that will be required around the Antipodean apartment building on Beach Rd, central Auckland.

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Auckland has been built from the outside in. Vs the inside out.

In Vancouver, the downtown core is 80% apartments. (affordability is a complete other topic). Which is actually having the opposite impact on infrastructure. Car infrastructure is being removed, instead of added. More intensification, means there is more close to where people live. (supermarket, restaurants/bars, activities). Which eases congestion. Because everything is close by people walk, cab, cycle or car share (Car2Go, Evo).

Obviously not achievable in Auckland right now. Because historically we’ve built horrible 30sqm apartments & kiwis now don't want them. We’d also rather waste the land we have with single level houses on sections. And add another lane to the motorway. Which is a short term fix & a lot more costly.

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I think it's the building of horrible apartments that has been the issue. Leaky shoeboxes, rather than large numbers of decent (say 70-110 sqm) spaces that families could use viably, built not to leak.

But many more Kiwis now do prefer apartment (or other intensified) living. Convenience, time etc.

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Exactly you only need to look at the shoe box apartments in Albany to see that. The cost per square meter goes through the roof, quite literally I mean you start looking at $6000 a square meter.Its not like we don't have green-fields all over the place to build on. The focus should be on building smaller quality houses that last. Current builds are good for 30 years and then its a pull down job.

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Labour is doing a great job in providing new warm housing for first home buyers who just want a roof over their heads they can call their own. They are not concerned about capital gain. They just want to get on the ladder. They want to live in Auckland as it is warm and has the best job opportunities. Who can blame them for that. National left us a housing mess. Labour has begun the cleaning up. A very positive move on their part.

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You have just hurt TTPs feelings

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Labour is doing a great job in providing new warm housing for first home buyers who just want a roof over their heads they can call their own. They are not concerned about capital gain. They just want to get on the ladder. They want to live in Auckland as it is warm and has the best job opportunities. Who can blame them for that. National left us a housing mess. Labour has begun the cleaning up. A very positive move on their part.

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Gordon, they are not worried about capital gain?
Then they will never be able to move up the ladder and buy something that can accommodate a family.
These KiwiBuild boxes are just army barracks, and the lowest form of housing apart from containers, although I would say the Containers would be a helluva lot cheaper.
You can continue to promote KiwIBuild and Labour as much as you like, but the reality is that if this is what you get for 649k in McLennan then the ones closer to Auckland are going to be even more basic, if that is possible.
To say they are modern, warm and architectural is an insult to architects!
That McLennan development land has been landfilled hasn’t it?
Would’ve been cheap to buy and then they squeeze so many on each normal size section.
You can’t tell me that they aren’t making very good money building these boxes!!!

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FHB's my foot - immigrant FHBs in NZ more like it. Get an immigration consultant to get you residency in NZ and set up the trust to assist with getting that pension and pensioner housing. Any money you have gets gifted to children who then gift it back into your trust. The trust then buys houses that you live in, while you sit waiting for your Kiwibuild and never ever tell them that you own multiple places overseas. At the same time born and bred kiwi families live in cars and are homeless.

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How is it decided who the lucky ones are who will win the KB lottery and the poor buggars who will miss out?

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All FHB win with kiwibuild.. some just win more. ;)

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It's a lottery... so presumably the names are put into a barrel and a name pulled out?

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""Ardern says KiwiBuild is "restoring the Kiwi dream" of home ownership to thousands of families who have been priced out of the housing market in Auckland and around the country."

Very good. What about all those first home buyers - thousands in the last 20 years living the Kiwi dream - dealing with weather tightness issues and earthquake prone buildings caused by City Councils around NZ not doing their work properly before issuing a Code of Compliance Certificate?

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The view from the lounge is amazing!

Cause if you don't like the brick wall on the left, you can look at the brick wall on the right!

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How long until some bright spark replaces the window with TV screens and you are surrounded by images of the real world? Maybe it would be an improvement?

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A whole two-car, off-street parking. It's a leetle Castle:

Oh Steve could you move the Camira I need to get the Torana out so I can get to the Commodore. Steve – I’ll have to get the keys to the Cortina if I’m gonna move that Camira. Darryl – Yeah watch the boat mate.

And, oh Deepest of Ironies, the object of the putative mortgage-slaves' desire is on - drum-roll - Liberation Road....

If there was Truth in Advertising, it would be Desolation Row...cue Robert Zimmerman

At midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders and then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles by insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row

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So the architect forgot to include a GARAGE!
Where do people store their lawnmower, their tools and anything else that normally houses these things in a GARAGE?
Don’t tell me they can build one at the end of the drive, because all that would do would block the sun out and be a total eyesore.

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Another baseless Wee Lad comment. They already have an outside storage cupboard for those sorts of things.

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Cannot be Architect-designed, it has Eaves....

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lol, cheers, glad you said it first.

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They store their lawnmower and petrol can under the bed of course! You silly sausage.

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Yeah the fashion now is no off street car parking in Auckland and throw in more cycleways preventing the off street parking trade access, elderly & other family members visiting, and limited access to transport to work. Part of the unitary plan changes that were sneaked in. Hence new builds have a limited period of usefulness for the family. I assume those who buy them only think in terms of the next 3 - 5 years at most. But since that is the limit to when they can safely sell them and with an estimated allowable sales amount they should still be ok at that point. Banks are far more likely to offer another mortgage once you have the first one down. For those going from a 5-10% deposit to over 20% equity though would be a bit of a hard slog on a mortgage over 500k. I do not envy them. The interest payments alone on that amount with NZ wages where they are down low would be frightening.

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