Premier House needs significant maintenance, with a recent report suggesting the prime minister's official Wellington residence needs tens of millions of dollars worth of work.
But is it worth it?
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon doesn't live there due to the home's condition.
It's been suggested it would be cheaper to demolish and rebuild the historic building from scratch, but there are other options as well.
Tommy's Real Estate sales director Tim Clark told Breakfast this morning: "First and foremost, I believe the prime minister needs somewhere that they can host other international dignitaries.
"There's some interesting things with the building though, the report came out at around about $30 million to get the property back up to standard... That's a significant amount of money, obviously, [but] it is a significant building.
"But in terms of what the building could offer, there's been some precedent."
He said the site was used as a trainee dental clinic for years after former prime minister Michael Joseph Savage refused to live in it.
"It actually earned the name 'The Murder House', so all the young kids that went and got their teeth checked by the trainee dental nurses termed it 'The Murder House' – so we've certainly had different uses for the building.
"I'd like to see it be retained as the premier residence, but the cost is significant."
There's "no question" of the building's heritage value, Clark added.
Sarah Mills from Seeds to Feeds, a registered charity that "aims to harness the power of local food experiences to connect people", suggested the site would be ideal for a community farm.
"It's kind of prime real estate," she said. "Our vote would be for it to be turned back into māra kai, which could look like a couple of different things.
"That side of the city doesn't have a large community garden, so there's always call for more community growing space.
"When you look at housing and the density of housing through that Thorndon pocket, I know there's a load of people over there who would love a space to grow their food.
"There's enough space there possibly even to put a small-scale urban farm."
And Luke Somervell from Renters United said the site could help address the city's "massive housing shortage".
Somervell said he would "love" to see apartments built there.
"But we can joke about this, it's a pretty funny thing to speculate about what we could do – I just want to bring it back to the issue that, I think it's quite funny how even the prime minister's palace is in disrepair.
"It really tells a story about the shocking state of housing in this country."
SHARE ME