Auckland: Embracing Inner City Living

Realtors say Aucklanders' growing desire to live closer to work and school and avoid the city's deteriorating traffic congestion is putting more pressure on an already tight residential market in the Central Business District.

Increasing demand has produced a boom in apartment building - and prices. Foreign language students are the biggest group trying to rent inner-city apartments. Then there is a rising number of CBD workers and short-term contractors for major projects such as Britomart.

Rental pressures also extend to the city's outer fringe - areas such as Epsom and One Tree Hill.

Around the Viaduct Basin, meanwhile, childless couples and empty nesters are shifting from the leafy suburbs into top-of-the-market owner-occupier apartments.

"There's a shortage of stock in the CBD," says Bayleys Real Estate's research manager Gerald Rundle. "Those renting have grabbed their apartments and don't want to give them up. If they left, they'd never get them back."

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