Tindall: House costs too high
The Warehouse founder Sir Stephen Tindall sees KiwiBuild as a ‘‘mechanism for innovation’’ that could smash the price of home-building in New Zealand.
Tindall is championing the new Financing the Future report on how private money and innovation can make headway on social and environmental challenges facing the country.
His Tindall Foundation, set up following the sale of The Warehouse in 1994, was a pioneer of impact investing.
But Tindall says the Government’s KiwiBuild could, in time, do for house-building costs what The Warehouse did for the price of consumer goods.
‘‘We are paying nearly double for building in New Zealand than what we should,’’ he says.
‘‘We have been able, through a lot of research, to prove we could get the price down by 42 per cent, if the supply chain changes.’’
KiwiBuild could provide the scale needed to attract big money into taking the research and making it an affordable reality.
The Tindall Foundation became involved in affordable homes around 20 years ago, when it helped fund the Housing Foundation charity, which, by the end of the year, will have built more than 1000 homes that lowerincome families can buy on a joint equity, or rent-to-own basis.
‘‘We’re looking at another big project around KiwiBuild, which in my opinion, and the reason I have got involved is, it’s an impact investment,’’ Tindall says.
‘‘The fact is that if KiwiBuild gave a contract to a big enough operator for, say, 5000 houses, they could invest the capital required to bring those prices to fruition.’’
Large, international businesses have responded to the KiwiBuild ‘‘request for proposal’’.
Previous Governments built a lot of homes, helping turn New Zealand into a broad-based home-owning democracy.
Tindall expects KiwiBuild to use some of the tricks of the past, including standardisation of building, offering maybe five models.
‘‘You go back to the 1950s, building state houses. They all looked the same, but it served a fantastic purpose. Those houses are still good.’’
Tindall laments the difficulty young Kiwis face in buying a home.
When he was a young married man State Advances offered lowinterest loans.
‘‘That was a social investment, that was. Look at how better off the country really was in those days.’’