27 homes for sale in \u014cwhata, Rotorua and 10 in Te Puke<\/a> through a shared ownership model.<\/p>\nFour wh\u0101nau have already been approved for loans, with construction of their homes due to begin next month.<\/p>\n
The initiative was \u201cgame-changing\u201d and \u201ctransformational\u201d for wh\u0101nau who thought they would never own a home, said \u014cwhata K\u014dhanga R\u0101kau chairman Jason Rogers.<\/p>\n
He said some of the families ANZ was providing mortgages to had basically \u201cgiven up\u201d on home ownership completely because they believed they couldn\u2019t afford it.<\/p>\n
![\"]()
\u014cwhata K\u014dhanga R\u0101kau chairman Jason Rogers said the homeownership initiative will be \u201cgame-changing\u201d and \u201ctransformational\u201d.<\/p>\n
But \u201cit\u2019s really just a mindset\u201d. When they actually sat down with someone, went through their finances and established a plan, they started to feel hope, Rogers said.<\/p>\n
Hope that they could \u201cbuild an inheritance for their future, for their kids, for their families\u201d.<\/p>\n
How it works<\/p>\n
Under the scheme, wh\u0101nau purchased 75% of a leasehold home while \u014cwhata K\u014dhanga R\u0101kau retained a 25% share.<\/p>\n
The 109sq m, three-bedroom homes are priced from $683,000, while four-bedroom houses of 150\u2013160sq m start at $763,000.<\/p>\n
Families gradually buy out the trust\u2019s share to gain full ownership, with up to 15 years to complete the process. Rogers said the interest-free scheme could save households as much as $170,000.<\/p>\n
By lowering the upfront cost, mortgages were smaller and more affordable. In many cases, he said, repayments were equal to or less than market rents in Rotorua, where three-bedroom homes could reach about $700 a week.<\/p>\n
The shared ownership homes were part of a wider mixed-tenure village in \u014cwhata supported by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development\u2019s Progressive Home Ownership Fund.<\/p>\n
![\"\u014cwhata]()
\u014cwhata K\u014dhanga R\u0101kau partnered with ANZ to deliver 27 homes for sale in \u014cwhata and 10 in Te Puke through a shared ownership model.<\/p>\n
The project already included 38 affordable rentals at \u014cwhata, with 20 for kaumatua and 18 for wh\u0101nau. A further 28 social rental homes were under construction, due to be tenanted by March 2026.<\/p>\n
Families in the affordable rentals paid about $550 a week for a three-bedroom home, 80% of market rent, Rogers said.<\/p>\n
The goal was to create a \u201ccontinuum\u201d of housing that supported wh\u0101nau to \u201cmove up the ladder\u201d from social renting to affordable renting, and ultimately into home ownership.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just about building houses, it\u2019s about creating pathways for wh\u0101nau to build security and opportunity for the next generation,\u201d Rogers said.<\/p>\n
The Ko T\u016b, Ko Rongo report said M\u0101ori home ownership had been declining nationally for decades, with just 27.5% owning or partly owning their homes at the 2023 Census, compared with more than 60% of the wider population.<\/p>\n
M\u0101ori were also overrepresented in housing support statistics and more likely to be living in poor-quality housing or experience crowding, the report said.<\/p>\n
If current trends continued, the report said almost all M\u0101ori could be renters by 2061.<\/p>\n
M\u0101ori wh\u0101nau interviewed for the report called for banks to work with iwi and M\u0101ori land trusts to better understand the complexities of building on collectively owned land, and to provide financial advice grounded in te ao M\u0101ori values.<\/p>\n
Rogers said \u014cwhata K\u014dhanga R\u0101kau projects in Rotorua and Te Puke were part of a broader programme, with more than 90 homes under way across its sites.<\/p>\n
He hoped the model would encourage other iwi and land trusts to pursue similar initiatives.<\/p>\n
Annabel Reid<\/a> is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke\u2019s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The research was led by M\u0101kere Hurst (Ng\u0101ti R\u0101kaipaaka, Ng\u0101ti Kahungunu, Ng\u0101ti Rongomaiwahine), ANZ New Zealand\u2019s Te Ao…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,806,17520,1647,38501,6097,2082,71,1345,20376,2883,3339,23807,29137,1432,2720,3180,117,111,43,139,69,3169,1327,1227,30859],"class_list":["post-43189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-and","tag-as","tag-barriers","tag-breaking","tag-breaks","tag-down","tag-for","tag-from","tag-home","tag-homeownership","tag-hope","tag-housing","tag-initiative","tag-keeping","tag-model","tag-mori","tag-near","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ownership","tag-rotorua","tag-tauranga","tag-whnau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}