A build-to-rent micro-apartment block is getting rave reviews from its first residents and catching the attention of politicians desperate to find solutions for the dire lack of affordable housing in Australian cities.

According to a report on ABC news online, the first tenants, chosen by ballot from the oversubscribed list of hopefuls, have started moving into the 54-unit Marrickville block.

The building features tiny 23sqm living units with shared communal facilities.  It has sidestepped minimum sizes for residential apartments because it is and always has been for rent.

The build-to-rent development is a partnership between not-for-profit housing developer Nightingale and Fresh Hope Communities, an arm of Churches of Christ, which provided the land and paid for the build.

The ultra-modern design, which straddles the divide between hotels, hostels and permanent residential rents, has attracted attention from state and federal governments desperate to find ways of tackling city’s crippling housing shortage.

“It was a massive build-up over a really, really long time … and the ballot day itself was really, really emotional,” Nightingale chief executive Dan McKenna told the ABC.

“Hearing [the] kind of emotion attached to knowing that they’ve got a roof over their head, that they’ve got that security in what the project is offering was fantastic.”

Mr McKenna hopes other faith groups will give up excess properties and land that they own so that more of these micro-apartments can be built.