Building on Mars ‘cheaper than owning in NZ by 2040’, tongue-in-cheek research finds – Stuff.co.nz

It will be cheaper to build on Mars than buy in New Zealand by 2040 if recent house price increases continue, according to a piece of tongue-in-cheek research conducted by a data consultancy owned by Stats NZ.

Data Ventures executive director Drew Broadly said the team conducted the analysis, in part, to stop arguments between home-owners and renters in the office about the sustainability of the market.

The research was part of a monthly training exercise in out-of-the-box thinking done by Data Ventures to develop staffs ability to find new ways of attacking complex problems.

Its becoming so bad moving to Mars should be something you should seriously consider, Broadly said.

Aispacefactory.com/Supplied

An artist's impression of what future habitations on Mars might look like.

READ MORE:* Elon Musk tweets, deletes brag Tesla could be biggest company 'in a few months'* Coronavirus: What telco data tells us about the economic impact of lockdown* Coronavirus: Government pulls telco location data for Covid-19 pandemic planning

Comparing house price trajectory to the predicted cost of building on Mars also allowed a light-hearted approach to analysing the market, rather than the deeper, more anger-type arguments that could spring up, Broadly said.

Kind of our underlying joke is thats how bad we think it is, that rather than saying renters vs. homeowners lets take it to a whole different argument that doesnt bring that political lens to it.

Data Ventures/Stuff

The working behind Data Ventures findings that it may be cheaper in future to build on Mars than buy in NZ.

You can see this isnt sustainable for anyone, Broadly said.

Data Ventures are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stats NZ, and act as an independent consultancy to draw on expertise and data from within the government organisation for paying clients.

The idea for this research came from Elon Musks recent announcement that he wants a city of one million people on Mars by 2050.

Broadly said using Musks predictions of costs had the advantage that anyone with complaints about the analysis could take them directly to the billionaire.

Data Ventures/Supplied

Data Ventures executive director Drew Broadly said the Mars-resettlement comparison was conducted as a kind of creative Friday exercise.

In the past, Data Ventures has worked with Tourism NZ and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to increase understanding of the domestic tourism market using anonymised telecom data.

The trajectory of New Zealands housing market prices was based on a QV house price index that showed house prices increased by 18.2 per cent in the year ending March 2021.

Data Ventures predictions were based on this increase continuing year-on-year.

Uncredited/AP

With just a couple of rovers and a tiny helicopter currently on Mars, congestion is unlikely to rival Auckland during rush hour any time soon.

The cost of buying an acre of Mars was taken from BuyMars.com, which Broadly concedes may not constitute a legally binding right to possession of the Martian surface.

According to Auckland Council in 2020, a residential-sized section in Auckland with no infrastructure or amenities would cost $132,665 over 3000 times the cost of Mars.

The big cost on the Mars-side of the ledger is transport.

While no-one enjoys sitting on the Southern Motorway at 5pm, a one-way trip to Mars is predicted to reduce in cost from roughly $14 billion to around $300,000 in future.

The median household size in New Zealand is 2.7 people according to Stats NZ, so a family trip would cost around $810,000.

Building an earthbag-style dome home on Mars, which would use Martian soil, was predicted to cost $35,520 in materials.

According to Data Ventures, a copy of Monthly Labor Review estimated 1337 man-hours to build a single-family home, so presuming Martian labour wages were similar to todays at $40, that would cost $53,480.

With all of that taken into account, the team compared it to housing costs in New Zealand if the 18.2 per cent yearly increase continued.

And there it was it became cheaper to build on Mars in 2040.

A blog post by Date Ventures on the topic noted Elon Musk may not be a reliable source for true costings of Mars travel, buying land on Mars may be illegal, Martian homes would be unfurnished, and there was a high risk of death involved in the move.

More here:

Building on Mars 'cheaper than owning in NZ by 2040', tongue-in-cheek research finds - Stuff.co.nz