City buyers shun poky properties

Christchurch developers cramming poorly-designed apartments into small spaces are frustrating potential buyers wanting central city living.

Post-earthquake zoning rules say developers must build one home per 200 square metres of land between the four avenues, unless they have existing use rights to build at lower density. At the same time, height restrictions limit most building to 11m or 14m, depending on location.

The resulting squeeze is deterring empty nesters, a key demographic for central city repopulation, from leaving the suburbs.

House hunter Mark Wilson said he and his wife were fed up after a long search for a central city apartment or townhouse.

‘‘We’ve been horribly underwhelmed by what we’ve seen. We were pretty open to looking at anything but most of them are atrocious.’’

Downsizing after raising a family in the suburbs, the couple had seen either tiny apartments or multi-level townhouses with too many bathrooms and bedrooms, poky living areas, small windows and no garages. Despite pricey fittings like European taps and porcelain tiles, most were badly designed with terrible layouts, he said. They were now looking at inner suburbs instead.

‘‘We are not fussy, but we’re not stupid either. We’ve got a million dollars to spend and we don’t want to be shoe-horned into a sardine can.’’

Wilson said he knew of about 10 other people wanting to make the same move if they could find a home to suit.

‘‘There’s a big hole in the market.’’

Property valuer Natalie Edwards agreed there was a shortage of well-thought out central city homes, despite a lot of people looking.

The choice was small apartments for under $600,000, or luxury apartments and townhouses for more than $1.5m, she said.

‘‘I’ve seen some horrible floor plans. They look amazing on the outside but they’re a big let down inside.

‘‘A lot of them are very blinged out, but they’ve got horrible small kitchens and living rooms, they’re just a stack of wee rooms.’’

High land and construction costs, combined with the intensified zoning and height rules, meant developers were squashing too many homes on to sites.

‘‘You’re getting townhouses that don’t even have a carport, let alone a garage. It’s a pain for developers because they can’t provide what the market wants.’’

Edwards said plans for homes in the east frame, a government rebuild initiative, looked no better.

Real estate agent Mark O’Loughlin of Harcourts is seeing unmet demand from empty nesters in their late 50s to early 70s wanting a city lifestyle.

Typically they wanted three bedrooms with a double garage, but these specifications were almost impossible to find in central Christchurch, he said.

Private outdoor space was also scarce as Christchurch City Council rules required open plan fencing between units and front doors facing the street.

O’Loughlin regularly surveyed would-be buyers and found affordability was well down their priority list, behind lifestyle, simplicity, security, ease of living, construction and technology.

Because cheaper apartments could be sold off the plan to satisfy developers’ bankers, they were less risky to build, he said.

Buyers with more money would not buy off the plans because they wanted to ‘‘touch and feel what they’re buying’’.