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A Māori architect and housing advocate says Māori have some advantages they can bring to the getting their first home, but they may need someone to walk beside them.
Rau Hoskins says while rampant house price inflation would seem to put home ownership out of reach of many whānau, if they start thinking as whānau they may find some opportunities, such as sharing ownership between generations or using whānau land, either an existing urban house site or multiply-owned rural or semi-rural land.
He says attendance at home ownership workshops now being run by Sorted-Kainga Ora show there is keen interest, especially among young people, and he’s likely to see them ramped up.
If you haven't done it before and if your whānau haven't done it before it's a foreign world, but what these programmes have shown that with iwi support, with iwi coming on board and having their own housing strategies along with building housing intelligence through these workshops, we can get a lot more whānau over the line and on that journey of stability," Mr Hoskins says.
He says the Government needs to spend some of its political capital by cracking down of speculation in the housing market, such as by reintroducing strict loan to value ratios.
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