Buy a KiwiBuild in W¯anaka
Ksusan.edmunds@stuff.co.nz
iwiBuild homes that did not sell in the ballot in Wa¯ naka are now being offered to the public. It was reported in November that three of the 10 offered for sale in the Northlake development had not sold to buyers drawn from the KiwiBuild ballot.
But now six finished properties are listed for sale. Although buyers will not have to go through a ballot to purchase them, they must still meet KiwiBuild purchase criteria.
The four three-bedroom homes are priced at $635,000 to $645,000 and two two-bedroom homes are selling for between $565,000 and $575,000.
The development has been controversial. The ballot deadline was originally extended because only 20 applications were received.
A total of 211 KiwiBuild homes will be built in the subdivision over the next two years.
Commentators said the development was not well targeted because Wa¯ naka did not have enough jobs paying the sort of salary that would enable buyers to service the purchase price.
Now, KiwiBuild’s ‘‘interim’’ targets for this electoral term have been scrapped as the Government recalibrates the programme across the country.
A spokesman for KiwiBuild said buyers registering their interest were now being asked for more information about what they wanted to purchase.
‘‘KiwiBuild has always asked people registering their interest in a KiwiBuild home where they would like to buy a home and their ideal number of rooms,’’ he said.
‘‘We have improved this so people can select a wider variety of locations, including which part of the big cities they are interested in, can ‘select all’ bedroom numbers rather than being limited to a single choice, and specify which typologies they are interested in, as well as letting us know whether they are active buyers.
‘‘This allows us to better target the communications we send about our growing number of developments to the people most interested in them, and allows us to communicate to developers about the types of homes potential buyers want.’’
He said more than 100 developers had expressed interest in working with KiwiBuild.
The pace of new developments being announced was ramping up, he said. ‘‘We opened the sale process on seven homes at McLennan [Papakura] on Saturday [February 2]. On Tuesday [February 5], we emailed our database about the first 15 KiwiBuild homes in Pukekohe, in a development carried out in partnership between Nga¯ i Tai ki Ta¯ maki and KiwiBuild’s Land for Housing programme.
‘‘Today [Friday, February 8], we emailed our database about 10 more homes at McLennan in Papakura. A number of further developments around Auckland and in other cities will be announced in the coming weeks.’’