Letters to the editor: First-home buyers should rethink priorities

First-home buyers should rethink their priorities when it comes to buying a home, says a reader. Photo / Getty Images

First-home buyers are being frustrated by many factors: better-funded buyers, unrealistic expectations, a willingness to accept cheap and ordinary, and a lack of long-term plans.

My thoughts on the self-sufficient house must seem at odds with the attendant costs of water harvesting, electric power independency and site treatment of waste.

We read of permanent water restrictions, the rising cost of electricity, the possibility of public wastewater overflows and the cost of upgrading century-old pipe infrastructure.

Piped water infrastructure bringing waste to a central position and worsens the problem.

A long-term plan for an affordable house needs the first-home buyer to set priorities, and three bedrooms for a single person or a childless couple one would think might be a lower priority.

The long-term plan would include the cost of excellent design setting out a schedule of features to be built in stages over time.

GL Hodgson
Bethlehem

Speed limits

Domain Rd, Papamoa, must be unique in the whole of New Zealand.

Driving from the beach, your speed limit is 50km/h. As you approach the motorway it increases to 60km/h and to go round the roundabout it increases to 70km/h.

Mind you, all the signs are marked "temporary" and have been for months.

I can only assume they are going to increase and to me, it is a little foolish.

Trevor Swindells
Pāpāmoa Beach

Roadworks

I despair of our local council and wonder when it is likely to apply some joined-up thinking.

With the massive roading works being carried out on Cameron Rd, it decided to resurface the section of 15th Ave approaching the Hairini bridge at the same time, causing absolute chaos in the city.

Why wasn't it done when that section of road was double-laned?

In my opinion: unbelievable incompetence.

Steve Porter
Welcome Bay

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