Nicola Kelland - An apartment as a first home?

A couple of months ago, John Key suggested that first homebuyers should buy an apartment if they wanted to live in the city and get on the property ladder. So what do you get for $500,000 or less in Auckland? Over the past three months there has been 235 apartment sales in Auckland between $200,000 and $500,000. 103 of those sales were for 1 bedroom apartments, 102 sales of 2 bedroom apartments, 22 sales of 3 bedroom apartments, 3 sales with 4 bedrooms and 5 studio’s.

172 sales were in the inner city, certainly indicating if you desire to live in the hub, there has been plenty of opportunity to buy and the high number of sales is probably reflective of the demand by investors looking for good rental properties and returns on investments.

If you would like to live in the surrounding suburbs, Eden Terrace had 13 sales, Grafton and Mt Eden 2 sales, Grey Lynn 7 sales, Kingsland, Mt Albert and Mt Wellington each had 3 sales, Freemans Bay 6 sales and Parnell 5.

If size is important to you, the 3 and 4 bedroom apartment sales were located in Auckland city with 25 apartments sold, Grafton, Kingsland, Morningside and Freemans Bay had 1 sale each. Grey Lynn and Mt Albert both had 2 sales.

While the tradition of buying a first home in the inner suburbs is the dream for many first homebuyers, maybe you should be considering buying an apartment; they may not be as limiting in terms of size and location as you thought.