House Prices

Shearer: No $300k houses in Auckland

Labour leader David Shearer has tempered his plans for a large-scale affordable housing scheme.

Monday, January 28th 2013

The party had said it would build 100,000 homes that would sell for $300,000 to low-income families through its KiwiBuild scheme.

Shearer said at the weekend that was a national average.

Standalone houses in Auckland would sell for more like $550,000.

He said apartments and terraced homes in cheaper Auckland suburbs could be sold for $300,000.

The plan had come in for criticism from many commentators who said it was too ambitious.

Property Council chief executive Connal Townsend told landlords.co.nz in November that more detail was needed on how Labour would achieve the $300,000 sale prices it had been talking about.

He said medium-rise apartments generally cost about $6500 a square metre to build.

Comments

On Tuesday, January 29th 2013 1:43 pm Lee Kammerer said:

This so called housing policy is nothing short of a vote grabbing sham. If Labour and the Greens are really committed to bringing the cost of housing down why, don't they support the government's changes to the resource management act? I simply don't see how they can build 100,000 homes in ten years for $300,000 with the RMA the way it is currently.

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