Christchurch first home buyer,68, wants more Pasifika
AT 68, Siale Faitotonu must have a shout at being the country’s oldest first home buyer.
In July, Faitotonu, his wife Milika, 51, and two of their adult children, bought a home in Christchurch together, pooling their savings for a deposit, and using their combined incomes to qualify for a Kiwibank’s co-own home loan. Now they want other Pacific families to hear about how the banking system is starting to learn how it can better serve them, and lift Pacific home ownership rates.
Te Ara Ahunga Ora The Retirement Commission says homeownership among Pacific peoples in New Zealand is the lowest among the recorded ethnicities, with just 21% owning, or partly owning, a home as of 2018, compared to 52% of the entire population.
Faitotonu is a geomechanics laboratory technician at the University of Christchurch with no intention of retiring any time soon. He had opportunities to buy when he was younger, but rents were low, and remembers not wanting to be locked into a mortgage.
He also married late, at the age of 41, though Milika, an early childhood teacher, says the main reason he didn’t buy a home was probably because he spent so much of his life and money helping others in Tonga, and in the Tongan community in New Zealand. That selflessness led to him being named a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2021.
‘‘Because he was the eldest of seven his income was used to help the family back in Tonga,’’ Milika said.
‘‘Most of the money was sent back to the islands to help, all his single life.’’
But, she said: ‘‘He should have bought the house back then, when [he] was single, and it was cheap.’’
Faitotonu said he looked after his family ‘‘in the Tongan way’’, but late last year, Milika took a leading role after the family was given eight months notice on the home they were renting.
She had heard of Kiwibank’s co-own loans through the Faka’amanaki Tongan