Opportunities for investors in Auckland expansion proposals

"These smaller inner-city dwellings have a place in the market - offering first-time property buyers a first step up on the home ownership ladder. They are also attractive to investors who know they will always have a letting-market of students and young urban professionals wanting to live close to the centre of the city - with all the attractions that style of living offers."

Auckland City Council's Auckland Unleashed discussion paper has outlined a number of proposals and planning guidelines for residential property expansion in the region, and highlights the estimates of Auckland's housing shortfall over the next 20 years vary between 12,000 and 90,000 dewllings.

Bayley said he believed the shortfall to be around the 50,000 to 60,000 mark, and that the template for new dwellings already exists in the shape of high rise apartment blocks, low rise terraced units and lifestyle blocks in the country - what will change he believes is where these properties are located.

"A common word that resonates throughout the Auckland plan is ‘compact.' That would tend to indicate the council is looking at intensifying residential land use as much as possible - going up rather than out."

He said the next step would be to identify which locations suit residential intensification.

"More compact mid-rise apartment block style developments around the 140  square metre size for example would fit well around transportation hubs - such as Birkenhead, Milford, Browns Bay, Henderson, Te Atatu, Three Kings, Greenlane, Onehunga, Dannemora/FlatBush and Glen Innes," he said.

Locations such as Kingsland, Ellerslie and Mairangi Bay are already seeing apartment developments, a trend Bayley said would continue.

He also said intensification in CBD fringe sites should not be assumed to mean including similar properties to the one and two-bedroom apartments seen around Auckland's central commercial precincts.

He also said that while larger, lifestyle blocks should remain as "the lungs of the city" there remains scope for high-end, small scale rural developments "which would allow people the affordable opportunity of enjoying the country lifestyle, but on smaller landholdings compared to lifestyle blocks."