Introducing Westward Ho Rd, Auckland's 'cheapest' street in the latest council valuations

Crumbling brick-facades, overgrown lawns, a rusty caravan, a place of baptist worship, large commercial lots and a block of sober flats, visited monthly by drug-detecting canines, line Auckland's "cheapest" street.

The people who call this street, which borders the suburbs of Glen Eden and Kelston, home are a mixed bag of single workers, students, young couples, small families, multi-generational family groups and recent migrants.

Westward Ho Rd has been revealed as the least expensive street in the latest council valuations out this week.

The median rateable value (RV) across its 139 properties was $103,000 - the vast majority of these 50-60sq m apartments valued at $110,000 or less that could be found inside a grubby-beige block at the end of the street.

Few of those the Herald spoke to knew or cared about these new valuations - for most it had little impact on their life.

Auckland couple Bhavnish Kapoor, 29, and Tomoka Kamisakamoto, 28, cared less about the value of the street's property and more about how they could find a home suitable to raise their 5-month-old, Ethan.

"We are hoping to get out from here soon ... we need to get a bigger place to raise our baby."

Bigger was not so much the problem as affordable for the couple who were living off a single income of about $39,000 per annum.

On this salary the Auckland home they could afford to rent was a shoebox apartment inside 30 Westwood Park, a large block which loomed into view from the end of the one-way street.

Despite its name the only evidence of there being a park at this complex was the smattering of skinny shrubbery hugging its sides and the lawn which ate but a small corner of the surrounding gray asphalt.

The building's interior matched its exterior to a tee - with the beige colour-theme repeated throughout the corridor and inside each apartment.

Walls and carpets were a little worn but were, at least, clean and there was a security system to keep unwanted visitors out.

Kapoor, who works in sales and marketing, said they paid $350 a week in rent for the one-bedroom apartment on one of the block's upper levels.

It came with a view of the ongoing construction mere metres away from their balcony - complete with sound effects.

The couple moved here six months ago - a month before baby Ethan was born. Kapoor said it was hard to find anything else on their budget.

Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment [MBIE] figures put the mean rent across the Super City in October this year at $545.

Kapoor earns about $750 a week from work that takes him away from his family as he travels in and out and around the city on a regular basis.

Paying the mean rent in Auckland would leave him $205 per week for bills, groceries and other items necessary for a family with a young baby.

"This is one of the reasons why we are planning to move to Hamilton, where we can afford a house, a two-bedroom house, paying $350, the same rent."

The couple hoped to find a place in Hamilton soon but said the apartment met their needs for now - a nice landlord, quiet neighbours and a relatively quiet - if not slightly unsafe - street.

On this quiet Tuesday afternoon there were few people out and about on the Glen Eden street - a young woman leaving the apartment block with a pair of headphones firmly on, a lady walking down the street on her walker and a seemingly-large family who could be heard chatting through the open door of a bungalow.

Kapoor said neighbour interaction was rare among the small families, workers and recent migrants he believed lived in Westwood Park.

His neighbours on either side were strangers to him and most people kept to themselves, though a greeting was often thrown around in passing.

Kapoor said the street environment was a little more uncertain, with there being talk of thieves on the streets and drug-detector dogs seen in the corridors a monthly occurrence.

He was not the only Westward Ho local to speak about some of the unsavoury happenings, with one retiree, Margaret Trezise, describing some of the locals as "Hell's Angels".

However, even with the presence of some rougher characters on the Glen Eden street Trezise was still happy to call it home for the foreseeable future.

She had moved into the area 17 years ago when her retirement was looming on the horizon, finding the small single-bedroom unit perfect for her needs.

"It's quiet ... handy to everything, not far from the shopping mall."

At the time Trezise bought the humble 1960s unit for $85,000 it had an RV of $140,000.

Its 2017 RV was $470,000, more than four times the street's median RV of $103,000 - a fact which seemed to be neither here nor there for the retiree who had already paid off her mortgage.

It hadn't dawned on her that in terms of assets she could be one of the "wealthier" residents on the street, shrugging off the RV as an inconsequential number that "fluctuates a lot".

CoreLogic data showed the apartments' RV were as low as $88,000 and hit the ceiling at $110,000. Meanwhile of the larger residential properties the RV ranged from $470,000 to $790,000.

Despite many of the larger units on the street nipping at, or surpassing the half-million dollar mark, many looked to be hardly worth the land they sat on.

Small yards, overgrown grass, old clothes and furniture littered throughout the lawns of the cluster of bungalows and units.

Windows gave little sign of life, blocked by tired-curtains, most of which were drawn closed against the sunlight, and in at least one commercial building steel bars were lining the glass pane.

"I hate the place," said Brian Cheffings the owner of one commercial building on Westward Ho Rd.

He'd been pulled into an interview after his curiosity at seeing a photographer taking images of a street that he saw as less than beautiful drew him out.

The 62-year-old was not clear on what had sent him to live on it - he clearly had no great love for the place with its proximity to the shops being the only good thing he had to say about.

Just around the corner, off West Coast Rd was Kelston Shopping Mall, with its cluster of standard franchise stores; Tank, McDonald's, Subway, Countdown and the usual banks, pharmacies and a petrol station.

Cheffings bought the white commercial unit, one of the newer looking buildings on the street back in 2008 for $225,000 - just $10,000 above its then-RV.

Today the property, which he had made his home, was valued at $310,000.

Like the others on his street, Cheffings couldn't care less about his new valuation, describing the paperwork informing him of his property's latest valuation as "pages of crap."