First home buyers in Kāpiti are unlikely to get much help in the short term from the KiwiBuild programme which promises 100,000 homes over the next 10 years.
The Government has announced the scrapping of its interim KiwiBuild targets as Housing Minister Phil Twyford gets to work on what he calls a recalibration of the policy.
The initial first year target of 1000 new homes by July looks likely to be closer to 300 but Mr Twyford and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said they were working “hell for leather” to try to push that number up before July.
Meanwhile here in Kāpiti the pressure remains on first home buyers to select from a fairly limited supply. The good news is many properties are still considerably cheaper in Kāpiti than down the road in Wellington.
Leading Kāpiti realtor Ceinwen Howard says there are a number of traps for first home buyers and taking expert advice is very important.
“Get your finance pre approved before you even go to view any property. If you are going to use part of your Kiwi Saver it takes considerable time to organise and you need to be very clear on how much you can actually spend,” says Ms Howard.
She says it is important to use a good mortgage broker as they will save you a lot of time and they are free.
Regarding the limited supply of available properties Ms Howard says, “align yourself with one good agent from all agencies and go on their early alert new emails so you can be notified when new stock is listed.”
Ms Howard advises prospective first home buyers to make sure they ask for a disclosure form on any property that you are seriously considering so there are no surprises when doing your due diligence.
On KiwiBuild, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says, “We had interim targets and now we are looking at the KiwiBuild programme and the timelines for delivery, but the 100,000 houses that 10-year goal remains unchanged.”
The Prime Minister says, “It’s never going to be as fast as we like, but it is a housing crisis and it was always going to take a while to turn the ship around.”
In the meantime first home buyers in Kāpiti will have to pick from the limited current supply.
