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@jegga I won't say much, as the new one we are building is pretty big, but designed for in 8 years time when we have two teenage boys.
The ones i don't understand are where you buy a small section and fill it with house. And your neighbours do the same. And everyone is just jammed in.
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@mariner4life that is all to do with zoning under the council plans.
Properly in town they are allowed to build closer to the boundaries, less issues with daylight angles and stuff....but other designated areas may have other regulations around property sizes for sub-division and density.
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@mariner4life said in Housing hornets' nest:
@jegga I won't say much, as the new one we are building is pretty big, but designed for in 8 years time when we have two teenage boys.
The ones i don't understand are where you buy a small section and fill it with house. And your neighbours do the same. And everyone is just jammed in.
There's lots of new building where I work, I drive around and see the new empty sections for sale. They often have little sign posts showing the size of the section. Most average around 400sq mtrs, tho I have seen a few at 300 - 350 sqm.
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@mariner4life I've got one teenage boy and the house seems to double in size when he goes back to stay at his mums for a week .
Some if the places I've seen are like 300 sq m but they scrimp on materials or trades to fit within their budget which will come back to haunt them or the next owner 10 years down the track. -
when I was working at the council I was doing a permit for a house that was on an 800sqm section, basically in a pizza wedge shape, and had been sub-divided straight down the middle, the existing bach being shifted 3m to allow for another equally small house to be built next to it....mental!
Always remember driving through Orewa (before the tunnel) and seeing all those houses jammed in so close, you could shake hands with your neighbor if you both leaned out your window and thnking wtf
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The reason for building large houses is that there is stuff all money in small ones unless you are building in large scale, so smaller developers and building companies avoid them.
Also, attached garages count as part of the floor area, so that increases the stats without actually increasing the house size.
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@jegga said in Housing hornets' nest:
@Godder I don't think it's the building firms pushing big houses it's the consumers . Bigger floor area doesn't necessarily translate to a much larger cost especially if the standard of fitout in the larger home is to a lower spec .
That too, but if a builder can make the same percentage margin on a big house as a small house, and both are the same amount of work for the builder / project manager, they're going to give preference to the big houses.
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A block around the corner from me - similar size of around 550sqm, but just land - sold for $720K a few weeks back.
They'll fill it up with a gigantic fucking two-storey I reckon, because it will maximise their resale in a few years.
The idea now with new developments is to have a local park as a play area, not a backyard in every house.
There are some nearby selling 300sqm blocks for over $400K.
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@jegga said in Housing hornets' nest:
Yep single glazed aluminium windows suck , if you can pay the extra go for thermally broken double glazed.
So true. Pretty easy to add double glazing to a lot of them but you can't retrofit a thermal break.
In our latest round of reno's we insulated the exterior walls of our bedrooms and lounge/kitchen and added foam insulation around the doors and window frames. Made a huge difference in retaining heat and getting rid of any drafts. But you still get condensation on the aluminium frames. Double glazing will help a bit but you still have the frame connecting inside and outside conditions.
We'd like to build at some point but not keen at all on a house that occupies 90% of the land and is made of balsa wood! See enough of that over our back fence at the Aotea development in Porirua. Not our cup of tea! nor in our price range which may be why I'm salty on them ha ha
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I'm still living in the first home I bought (in NZ).
when I bought it I thought - will it do me until I die? Yes. Good where do I sign?
I could so easily have upgraded over the years - got a place with a view, pool, on the coast, parking for cars I don't own and a bathroom for every day of the week.
Not doing so is the best financial decision I have ever made.
I've spent a fair bit on it over the years and done a lot myself - reroofed, painted it twice (overdue a repaint now but struggling to bring myself to do it) and now its comfortable like an old favourite jersey.
I might sell down and take some cash out but more than likely I will die there.
However there is no way on earth I can imagine how I could afford to buy it now and I earn reasonable coin.
$300K deposit. My parents were poor. I can't see how anyone can come up with that sort of cash unless they have a massive head-start in life.
If I were starting out I don't think I'd bother. I've lived in countries where home ownership was not the norm and everyone seemed happy.
We need a paradigm shift away from your house being your only asset - which of course would lead to cheaper housing too in the long run
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@jegga said in Housing hornets' nest:
@Virgil I don't mind painting the inside, chuck on a podcast and get on with it. Outside, yeah nah.
Try painting a roof!
I volunteered to paint the inlaws batch roof over the Xmas break, not big but spent around 12 - 14 hours up there. 20+ degree days looking over the lake at fluffybunnies cruising about in their boats etc.. -
@dogmeat said in Housing hornets' nest:
However there is no way on earth I can imagine how I could afford to buy it now and I earn reasonable coin.
$300K deposit. My parents were poor. I can't see how anyone can come up with that sort of cash unless they have a massive head-start in life.
I think this is a good point. A bunch of this thread is touched on the usual stuff on how todays generation can't make the sacrifices of the past (lattes, holidays etc) - but quite clearly people on low to medium incomes have a much bigger struggle to get into the housing market these days unless you're in the far flung provinces. My parents weren't wealthy but were able to buy a house and spend money on latte/holidays equivalents (stuff for my sister and I, lots of sporting trips, the pub/club/golf etc). I don't think a young low income family starting out today have a hope of getting into a house in most places in NZ.
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@dogmeat Tough to raise a $300K deposit in your late-20s, early 30s, but with two people on good salaries it could be done a bit later. I don't see why anyone would want to, though.
If owning your own home is hugely important to you, then probably the question is - is it important enough that you'll move out of Auckland? You can still get places for $300K in Dunedin, Christchurch and even Nelson. You can get something pretty good for $500-600K.
So even if you weren't ready to move now, you could potentially buy a rental in one of those places to have your foot in the door, with the intention of moving a bit further down the track.
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If there's an upside to the crazy prices in the main centres I hope it leads to some of the provinces regaining some of the population they lost over the years, I was talking to a guy today who's retiring next year and moving to Masterton or Carterton. He can get a nice house with a quarter acre section and a little bit of money left over which sounds like a decent plan to me, more people moving to places like that means more customers for the local shops , more ratepayers for the council etc etc. There must be a point where the huge mortgages in places like Auckland outweigh the benefits of the extra income you earn.
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@Paekakboyz I would recommend looking at a ventilation system (HRV, Smart Vent, DVS etc)
We had DVS at our old place after the aluminium joinery had pretty much every window crying.
Our new place, we thought we wouldn't need it being fully insulated, double glazed etc...wrong.
We got HRV and haven't had any since - having had both DVS & HRV I'd say the latter is better, although there are a number of other options too.
They have pretty good filter systems too, only time my family has been sick since we had either DVS or HRV was when we were renting in a house that didn't have either!!
Housing hornets' nest