They're smaller than most meeting rooms and only twice the size of a prison cell - studio apartments just 21sq m are being built in Auckland despite local "anti-shoebox" rules.
Developer DuVal is building 91 tiny studios within its new 14-storey Lakewood Plaza building in Manukau and selling them as half of a "twin-key" set-up, where two apartments are part of one title and connected through a door.
Buyers were able to purchase one 21sq m studio and one 32sq m one-bedroom apartment - each with kitchen and bathroom - for around $800,000.
All but eight of 150 apartments in the building have sold.
The twin-key packages were marketed as either "high yield" investments, or a "home and income package" with a rental appraisal last year estimating buyers could rent the two for around $650 a week.
This is despite the studio and the one-bedroom each falling well short of minimum size regulations brought in under the Auckland Unitary Plan in 2016, to combat a rash of "shoebox" apartments cluttering the centre city.
Urban Designer Tracy Ogden-Cork told Mike Hosking there's clearly demand for them.
"They are attractive in the sense that if you are a young couple and you needed to rent out a room to help pay for your mortgage, a dual -care arrangement gives you an opportunity to do that with a bit more privacy."
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