Gill South from the NZ herald ran an article on HighProfiles on 25th Aug as part of a weekly Q & A on Auckland apartments. Here are the clippings for those that missed it.
This 32 Sqm Hong Kong apartment is equivalent to the size of an average studio apartment in Auckland City, by moving the walls along sliding tracks in the ceiling it is possible to change the single room into 24 different combinations!! Very creative.
As we are all aware, Auckland apartments can be very small, every central city apartment which I have lived in has had a shortage of storage space, and I for one, would love to see some creative use of existing spaces.
Here is a great example of a table which folds down from the wall and doubles as a picture frame when not in use. Visit Ivy Design for more details.
We have just completed the building profiling for Citta Apartments 184 Symonds St bringing the total apartment profiles in Auckland city to 17,001!. You can view the floor-plans for Citta apartments and browse by floor area in Sqm, number of beds, light direction, and number of car-parks each apartment has. Citta apartments has a large shared garden courtyard on the 1st floor featuring a fountain and pergola, nice seating and landscaping.
Many of Citta apartments car-parks are dual car-parks which means you can park two cars in line, one in front of the other. Bedroom layouts are either studio or two bedroom, studios ranging in size from 28 Sqm to 43Sqm and Two bedrooms from 52 – 77Sqm.
Citta is well positioned on the corner of Kyber pass road and Symonds St being close enough to walk into the city or Newmarket 10-15 mins each way, also on the major bus route leading into the city. It is over endowed with good places to eat and drink nearby. This is a great option if you are a couple with two cars as you effectively get two for the price of one because of their size.
A big welcome to Debra Dorrington today, of Alexander Dorrington Law, Debra is a specialist in property law and our new blog author, she will be keeping you up to date with any changes which may effect apartment investors.
Debra is available to answer any questions you may have about structuring your property investment portfolio on the ‘Investment Q&A’ page of this blog.
We look forward to reading Debra’s posts and welcome the addition of more rich data for our property investor community.
The Metropolis apartments at 1 courthouse lane in Auckland is a great example of how architecture can enrich the life of a city, These days, developers are too concerned about making a quick buck that the quality of the buildings suffer and we all have to put up with eyesores that degrade the quality of life for everybody.
Just look at all the leaky buildings that have caused so many people to lose their life savings over the last 10 years…do any of these buildings have any architectural value? In 50 years will they be on the historic buildings register?
The Metropolis apartments will last a long time because it is made with good quality materials and is a real landmark in Auckland, I love it.
Highprofiles has a full building profile on the Metropolis with interactive building floorplans, and Virtual tours. Currently we have five for rent apartment listings, and 1 for sale listing.
I have had a number of people requesting for Eclipse apartments to be added to highprofiles, it often takes some time for new buildings to make it to our site because the data is not available to us.
Eclipse has 175 apartments and brings our total apartment profiles in Auckland central to 16,525. View the eclipse building profile here and you can view the building floorplans for Eclipse here.
Wow! I love this apartment! This weeks property spotlight is in The Britomart apartments 14 Emily Pl, Auckland This apartment just shouts quality, built over 3 levels, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1 car-park and 203 Sq m excl decks! Here are a few of the photos.
Apartment 7C is zoned residential/commercial, so is quite a unique proposition in Aucklands’ apartment market. Located just behind the Scene apartments on the waterfront these apartments look out over the top of them and have great views of the harbour, this area has really improved over the last 4 years with many boutique shops and great places to eat between it and the short walk into the CBD.
This listing is being marketed by Damian Piggin and Daniel Horribin of Ray White City.. visit highprofiles for more information
The Embassy apartments at 18-36 Wakefield st have been under refurbishment for it seems like about 18 months already! They have been another casualty of the “leaky building syndrome” like so many other apartments.
I really feel for the owners who got stuck with them, because they have had a very hard time trying to keep them rented whilst all the work on re-cladding the building has been taking place.
Work is due to be completed in August however and the building is looking much better for the upgrade and paint job. Apartments are showing up more frequently for rent on property portals, Crockers has two for rent on highprofiles, a 1 bed, 1 bath, 1 car-park at 56 Sq m for $400pw and a Two bed, 2 bathroom, 1 car-park at 98Sqm (excluding huge balcony) for $465pw. excellent value!
The Embassy apartments will be an excellent investment now that they have been fixed up because:
Both of these buildings are very roomy and offer decent sized bathrooms, often with a two bed two bath configuration. The bathrooms are huge in comparison to most in this price range in the city and at least one usually has a bathtub.
The Embassy is very popular with Asian students, probably because there is a Korean supermarket across the road and they are so central to the nightlife and Universities. No need for buses here.
What I like about the new realestate.co.nz website is its flexibility to let you view the contents in whatever way you feel most comfortable, you have easy access to viewing the photos and you don’t have to go into the listing to give them a quick once over.
I do not see any mind blowing new technology, I was personally hoping for something cool like video, but the fact is that agents don’t use it yet.
It is good to see the ability to share to facebook and twitter and also view your past search history. The sliders in the refine search work well and speed things up nicely.
Usability wise, it would be good to include a “clear all” button when you are selecting a property type as it is not immediately obvious to click the “residential” tick-box to de-select what you don’t want and even then you still have to de-select “lifestyle property, lifestyle section, and section” if your are just looking for apartments for example.
Personally the colour-scheme makes me a little sick just looking at it, perhaps there is too much use of colour or solid areas of colour.
When it comes down to whining about the colour-scheme though, you know you have done a pretty good job all round. So what is next on the cards? walk-ability scores? Suburb reviews like realestate.com.au? Perhaps a mobile application? The site still only provides basic functionality expected for a portal but what I think they have done with this release is put down a good solid foundation which they can then add to. It will be interesting to see where they take it over the next year. That’s my two cents…..
