A few weeks ago, a developer pre-sold most of its eight planned heritage-style weatherboard townhouses in two Auckland projects.

They plan to bring more of their cookie-cutter housing designs to Auckland, and aims to revive the styles of homes prevalent in many older suburbs.

But having a suburb full of similarly designed houses seems like it'd make neighbourhood dull, especially if they're bunched up together as councils plan to intesify - that in turn, would affect prices, and would make any changes you make to the property stick-out like a sore-thumb.  

So what are the pros and cons of cookie-cutter builds? what DIY projects could we do to boost our home's appearance? And what would we bring in an architect for?

Daniel Marshall is the Owner/Director of Daniel Marshall Architects and joins Tim Beveridge for the OneRoof Radio Show...

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