Design your own affordable home

The Department of Building and Housing wants ideas on low-cost homes.

Relevant offers

They might be affordable but don't call them ugly.

A competition launched this week by the Department of Building and Housing aims to get architects, students, designers and builders to come up with plans for affordable new homes that are sustainable and look great.

The winning design will be turned into a house and the organisers hope the competition will demonstrate that building a designer new home is a viable option for first-home buyers.

The competition comes as the government continues to introduce a number of measures aimed at addressing housing affordability issues.

Since the property boom started around 2002, house prices have been steadily climbing out of the reach of ordinary Kiwis. And despite a slowing market and this week's announcement of lower interest rates, households on the average income would still struggle to make mortgage payments on a median priced house.

And it's still looks grim for first-time buyers too.

Latest figures from interest.co.nz show that it now takes 66.8% of the typical first home buyer's income to buy a lower quartile priced house. Housing costs are considered affordable when they claim no more than 30% of a household's gross income.

Department of Building and Housing building quality chief executive Dave Kelly says that many modern new homes tend to be large and therefore more expensive. Entries in the competition need to keep building costs down to $1400 per square metre and, with the maximum floor plan size capped at 120 square metres, total costs will be around $168,000.

Auckland architect and competition judge Gordon Moller expects entries will be innovative. He says the easiest way to produce cheaper housing is mass production. This means the challenge for entrants will be finding ways to mass produce parts but have designs that allow for individual tastes and requirements - including being able to expand as families grow and being adaptable to different section types around the country.    

Housing Minister Maryan Street says there is already strong interest in the competition. ``I'm aware of a number of architects and developers who are applying themselves to this right now.  I have already been approached by people who are keen to let me know that there are simple, affordable, eco-friendly designs coming off their drawing boards right now.''

Other government initiatives addressing housing affordability include, Welcome Home loans, KiwiSaver first home deposit subsidy and the  shared equity scheme pilot.

The competition opens on September 14.

- © Fairfax NZ News