London House Prices Have Nothing on Auckland
A state house in the suburb of Orakei in Auckland, New Zealand. State homes, particularly those built from local timber in a wave of government-led construction in the 1940s, are regarded as iconic — products of a time when the government was determined to ensure no one lived in squalor.
Photographer: Brendon O'Hagan/BloombergEven with its mold-streaked bathroom and kitchen without a sink, the duplex in bayside Auckland attracted a frenzied bidding war. Now it’s one of the city’s newest million-dollar government-built houses.
The two-bedroom, brick cottage on Kerr Street on the city’s inner north shore fetched NZ$1.04 million ($685,000) at an auction in September, netting the vendor, New Zealand’s government, double a valuation used for taxes. Long symbols of economic disadvantage, homes built by the state last century for low-income tenants are on a tear, thanks to their typically generous land sizes and proximity to the city.