4 October 2011
McMansions.
One of the better descriptors I've heard in recent years is "McMansion". The term is used to describe new homes built to look like mansions, but which, under the skimpy exterior, is actually a lemon. You will see them in all the new housing estates - 4 or 5 bedroomed houses with impressive-looking entries and most times, space-wasting entry atriums.
The school our kids go to means that we live in one of these McMansions, and it's only by living in them that one can understand the true import of the term. They are poorly-built, made from inferior materials and fitted out with cheap imported rubbish from China.
On the surface, they look like nice, executive-style homes, but the doors don't fit, the floors sag after only a year, the granite benches are ill-made and the cupboard doors are designed to be ruined in short order. Plumbing is third-rate, with flexible pipes used in many places, which guarantees ongoing work for plumbers, because normal vibrations in the house make the fittings cut through the fabric and cause leaks.
Given the leaky home fiasco, it amazes me that people are prepared to pay around $750,000 for a house which would will fall down long before homes built in 1900.
I can understand the consumerist ideal that goods are not made to last, but houses? Who wants to live in a house that is guaranteed to be a danger to occupants in only 20 or 30 years?
I happen to be living in one temporarily, simply because it's close to our kids' school, and the list of defects is so long it would be laughable to put it in a blog; your fingers would tired scrolling past it. From the flimsy doors, not a single one of which hangs correctly, to the upstairs floor looking like Lancaster Park after the earthquake, to the cheap-arse Chinese cupboards, hinges and kitchen fittings that are all falling to bits, to the "chandelier" which is so cheap it didn't come with an angled fitting, so hangs from the ceiling like Saddam Hussein, waiting to be cut down and decently buried.
A recent sale in our street highlighted a two-year guarantee on a brand-new home for sale! Two years! Even cheap cars come with five-year guarantees.
On a value basis, these things are as bad as Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, although quite who is going to lose the money is as yet uncertain. They are jerry-built from factory-made, untreated wood. Sorry, they are treated.... well, the outside piece of wood is, anyway. Yep, just that one. That will give you the comfort that if it only leaks a little teeny bit, you should be ok. If, however, the leak is enough to keep that piece of wood damp, then it will make the ones it's attached to damp as well, and they'll just rot.
They come with no land, and the vast bulk of the value is in the property itself, since a large Auckland home in a nice area is valued because it's there rather than any intrinsic value.
Have no doubt, within 30 years, these houses will be virtually uninhabitable. I will personally be surprised if the one we're in lasts anywhere near that long as the baby's bedroom is already falling off the house - there is clear evidence of movement outwards and away from the bulk of the house, and I imagine that in a dozen or so years, a decent truck going past will be enough to shake it off.
Whoever owns it at that stage will have a slight problem, because it will have to be torn down. Using today's dollars as a guide, that will result in about a $650,000 loss for the owner.
Don't be that owner!
Copyright © Alan Charman