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.
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 scheme could, in time, do for housebuilding 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. 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 about 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 lower-income families can buy on a joint equity or rent-to-own basis.
‘‘We’re looking at another big project around KiwiBuild . . . 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’’.
Tindall expects KiwiBuild to use some of the tricks of the past, including standardisation of building.
‘‘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.’’