Tauranga is being oversupplied with large expensive houses when more people want smaller cheaper new homes.
The imbalance between supply and demand has seen the Tauranga City Council's strategy and policy committee step in and try and sort out an issue that is making home ownership a pipe dream for increasing numbers of city residents.

The Housing Stock and Housing Demand report, presented by city directions group manager Christine Jones to the council, highlights the facts that most Tauranga households, 64 per cent, have an annual income of $70,000 or less. The benchmark is 30-35 per cent of gross income is spent on housing – whether paying rent or a mortgage.
It means most households in Tauranga will need a deposit of $132,000 to be able to buy a $400,000 house.
The report says most of the houses (66 per cent) built in Tauranga in the last five years have a capital value of more than $400,000, while over the same period the numbers of less than $400,000 homes built has decreased by 20 per cent.
There are also demographic changes swinging the balance further in favour of one and two person households over the next 50 years.
They are figures that have combined to make Tauranga the least affordable of the New Zealand cities surveyed as part of the Demographia Housing Affordability Survey. The survey rates housing affordability in markets in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the UK.
The report says continuing supply of large houses on large sections is driven partly by developers who cater for perceived lowest risk and the city council's own District Plan provisions which restrict the ability to sell smaller sections.
The committee agreed that staff developers and three councillors will investigate and report back on options to address housing stock issues.
Developer Bob Thorne told the committee the council's compliance costs are increasing by 20 per cent.
'We will have to have somebody in a caravan on site full time,” says Bob.