The market for new housing units in Auckland New Zealand is going up – into new high rise buildings. The recent boom in building has fueled a spate of new residential towers in New Zealand’s largest city. Somewhere in the range of 2,000 new units per year have gone up over the past several years, but this has started to slow somewhat, according to the New Zealand Herald (www.nzherald.nz.com).
One of the newest residential towers is the 30 story Sentinel at Takapuna building in downtown Auckland. This 117 unit tower is set to open in December, and prices for the new residences have been averaging $1 million NZD (527,000 euros or 360,000 pounds). The developer notes that he has not yet sold the $10 million NZD penthouse suite, yet.
The median housing price in Auckland for 2006 was $395,000 NZD. Over the past five years, about 20 high rise residential buildings have been constructed each year, according to statistics cited by Massey University (http://www.massey.ac.nz ), a leading provider of real estate information for the country. With Auckland’s land area limited and its population growing, a cost-effective way to build new projects is to go higher.
The city is located on New Zealand’s North Island and is situated in a narrow point of land between two bodies of water – Waitemata Harbor, part of Hauraki Gulf, on the east and Manukau Harbor on the west. These, in turn, lead to the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea. With several small mountain ranges to the north and south, Auckland is one of the most scenic cities in the world.
Auckland has a city population of 425,000 and a metro area population of approximately 1.4 million, making it the largest city in New Zealand. As such, it is also the main business center and continues to draw immigrants from around the world. Growth is expected to remain strong for the next several years.
A survey by Britain’s National Savings and Investments (NS&I) has found a quarter of Britons trying to buy their first house would consider moving overseas to do so — and a third of those had their eye on New Zealand or Australia.
NS&I spokesman Mark Brooks said a property boom in Britain had caused average house prices to double over the past six years.