House with no toilet sells for $2m as New Zealand property market soars | Hacker News Reader

House with no toilet sells for $2m as New Zealand property market soars

theguardian.com

House prices are out of control in New Zealand everywhere, but this is a very expensive suburb. The sale price is land+demolition costs. It could have been purchased by a developer who thinks they can sub-divide the property in the future or is buying up multiple properties on the block.

There is also a bizarre (to me) trend among very wealthy in Auckland to gut/demo these old "character" houses and keep just the street facing facade. No doubt this signals real wealth since it must cost a lot more than demolishing the house, while also appearing humble. See Tall poppy syndrome:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome

In 2018 the govt. banned overseas investors buying most classes of property. Prices have only soared since.

Keeping the facade could mean the house is still the old house in a Theseus’ ship kind of way, which could mean it only has to comply with building codes from when it was originally built.

Why would prices rise more after killing off foreign investment?

Because money can circumvent regulations and hack the system. Using local strawmen as buyers etc.

Nothing more funny then these wealthy elites, believing they can become a island, disconnected from society, by taking refuge on an island.

How can you gain your wealth from a very complex international trading system and not realize, that there is no way to escape a decomplexification event in those systems is beyond me.

Must be some mammal brain part insisting that a burrow is needed.

I miss the post world-war 2 CEOs who instead would have taken that money to a company lab, to solve problems. Aka build a fusion plant, instead of a Global-Collapse-bunkervilla.

As a New Zealander there is a substantial lack of critical analysis, thought and long term strategy across all levels of society and government. I am not at all optimistic for the extended outlook of the country.

As an Australian, from what I've read, you guys generally have a much better government than we do, and seem better at rolling things out (like your broadband network vs our botched, slower than 4G one).

> I am not at all optimistic for the extended outlook of the country.

Same here for Australia, which is why I invest all my savings in international index funds and $0 in Australia.

How on earth would this work?

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