Apartment living is the Kiwi dream for these families

Bernie, her husband, and their twin teenage girls swapped what is a quintessential part of the Kiwi dream - a home with a pool in a leafy Auckland suburb - to get another Kiwi ideal, a beachside bach.

The linchpin in this tradeoff is that Monday to Friday, the family lives in an inner city apartment off Auckland’s Karangahape Road and spends weekends at the bach.

“Some people look at us sideways, but a lot of people say, ‘Actually, that makes a lot of sense,” says Bernie, of the lifestyle they set up several years ago.

The apartment isn’t small. It is 150sqm plus a balcony, and the complex has a gym, pool, and green space. Bernie’s husband can walk to work, and the family doesn't hold back on going to performances, events, and exhibitions in the city. When Bernie had a long hospital stay, many in the apartment complex helped the family.

​Bernie and her family are bucking a trend in a nation that seems stubbornly averse to something more common in cities overseas: families happily living in apartments.

The number of children living in central Auckland has taken a sharp dive in recent years, with blame falling to excessive housing prices. ​In the central areas of Auckland, the population of 0 to 14-year-olds dropped 8.7 percent between 2013 and 2023. Wellington had less of a drop with the under-15 population in central areas falling almost two percent between 2015 and 2024.

For those wanting to stay close to city centres, apartments are - not surprisingly - cheaper in Wellington and Auckland, according to Nick Brundson at Infometrics. The average cost of a three-bedroom apartment in the central Auckland area, including the CBD and out to Western Springs, is $685,000 compared to $1.9 million for a house, says Brundson, who used Real Estate Institute of New Zealand and Stats NZ data to crunch the numbers.

In Wellington city, the saving is not so great. The apartment median price is $852,000, compared to $880,000 for a standalone house.

However, cost is just one of the benefits, according to three families who choose to live in an apartment.

Mabel, 4, lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Auckland’s CBD with her mums.

“I like looking down and waving at my neighbours and going around the city.”

Emma Quigan, one of Mabel’s mums, says her daughter “identifies as an apartment dweller".

“If we have looked at other houses, she doesn’t like the idea.”

Initially, the apartment was a way for the family to get on the property ladder, but five years after buying it, they have no plans to upsize. It's a one-bedroom place, with the living room converting to another sleeping space at night.

“...in New Zealand it is super weird, but it is quite normal around the world, and it has become quite normal to convert our [living] space to a sleeping space.”

The benefits of an apartment are numerous for the Quigan family. Saturday morning means walking to one of the CBD’s many cafes. Mabel has seen every art exhibition at the nearby Auckland Art Gallery, and if she wants to do some crafts, there’s an art room for kids. There are numerous playgrounds nearby where they meet up with other apartment families.

“The motorway is there so we can get out of town and go camping... Our weekends are ours because we don’t have maintenance.”

Sometimes Quigan would love more of a garden, but a patio version is enough most of the time.

Adrianne McAllister, the principal of Mt Cook School in Wellington city, says more students and staff families live in apartments now because of affordability. Seven families who are coming to the school this week “will all be living in apartments,” she says.

Many of the student families who live in apartments are often new immigrants, but some of them are New Zealand-born families.

“I think mindsets are changing where they don’t need a big Kiwi backyard.”

It was 13 years in New York City that groomed Rebekah Mercer to prefer apartment living. When she moved back to New Zealand four years ago with two teenage daughters, after a few years in a house in Bali, they only looked for an apartment to live in.

“When I used to visit New Zealand, especially walking around Auckland, Grey Lynn, I would have almost villa-envy - ‘imagine living there'.

“Now, I sort of walk past and go, ‘That looks dark. I bet that is damp', or ‘Imagine the upkeep on that'.”

Mercer also feels safer in an apartment, especially as her husband remains mostly overseas.​

“It feels incredibly safe. There were times I had to be home late after work, and I never worried about my daughters at all.”