Offsite manufacturers keen to partner with KiwiBuild

The KiwiBuild Unit has received 102 responses for its Invitation to Pitch for offsite manufacturers, Minister of Housing and Urban Development Phil Twyford announced today.

KiwiBuild’s Invitation to Pitch for Offsite Manufacturing has closed. It asked companies involved in offsite manufacturing to propose ways they could help KiwiBuild boost New Zealand’s housing supply, increase productivity and build affordable homes for first home buyers.

Phil Twyford said innovative offsite manufacturing is a key part of the KiwiBuild plan to enable innovation and scale to drive a real-step change in the availability, quality and price of housing.

“KiwiBuild is not only about tackling the housing crisis and restoring the kiwi dream of homeownership to young families. It’s also about transforming how we build homes to reduce construction costs, deliver consistent high quality design, increase capacity of the construction sector, and get homes completed faster.

“Offsite manufacturing firms from across New Zealand and around the world have put forward their ideas to help us do that. The KiwiBuild Unit will now work through the proposals from the companies.

“There is a real opportunity to leverage the procurement power of Government, and the certainty of KiwiBuild’s targets, to incentivise offsite manufacturers to come up with new ideas and to commit to the New Zealand market.

“The offsite manufacturing procurement process will take time. In the meantime, KiwiBuild is building affordable, starter homes for first home buyers. It’s doing this through underwriting eligible new developments, making land available for development and integrating affordable housing into major urban development projects,” Phil Twyford said.

· Only eligible, pre-qualified buyers can enter the ballots for houses, so anyone interested should visit the KiwiBuild website and begin the pre-qualification process.

· KiwiBuild incentivises property developers to build more quality, affordable homes faster, by reducing their risk in a number of ways, including underwriting homes in new developments.

· For more information please go to www.kiwibuild.govt.nz

KiwiBuild eligibility

To ensure KiwiBuild homes go to the people they are intended for, applicants must:

· Be a first-time buyer or a ‘second chancer’

· Have an income of less than $120,000 for a single buyer, or no more than $180,000 for more than one purchaser,

· Be a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident, or a resident visa holder who is ‘ordinarily resident in New Zealand’,

· And intend to own and live in the home as their primary place of residence for at least three years.

Pre-qualification requirements

The online pre-qualification process will ask for specific documentation certified by an authorised person (e.g. Justice of the Peace, lawyer, etc) including:

· Proof of citizenship/residency

· Proof of income

· Financial pre-approval from a bank or other lender

· Statutory declaration signed by an authorised person (e.g. a Justice of the Peace, lawyer).