Stephen Tindall: KiwiBuild could do for homebuyers in New Zealand what The Warehouse did for buyers

Sir Stephen Tindall, founder of Warehouse, sees KiwiBuild as an "innovation mechanism" that could blow up the price of building houses in New Zealand.

Tindall defends the new Financing the Future report on how best to develop an "investment impact" eco-system in which private money and innovation are used to advance the social and environmental challenges facing the country.

Its Tindall Foundation, created following the sale of The Warehouse in 1994, was a pioneer in impact investing.

But Tindall says the KiwiBuild government could eventually cut homebuilding costs in much the same way as The Warehouse, for the price of consumer goods.

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"We are paying almost double the cost of building in New Zealand compared to what we should," said Tindall.

"Thanks to a lot of research, we were able to prove that we could cut prices by 42% if the supply chain changed."

KiwiBuild could provide the scale needed to attract a lot of money so that the research is truly profitable.

"Even for a traditional house, if you build it in a particular way … you can build a traditional house at 42% less, using factory mechanisms for panerisation, by getting building materials without double margins, etc. "

The Tindall Foundation started building affordable housing about 20 years ago, contributing to the funding of the Housing Foundation, a charitable organization that, by the end of the year, will have built more than 1,000 homes that low-income families will buy into, or rent-to-own.

"We are considering another big project around KiwiBuild which, in my opinion, and the reason I got involved, it's an impact investment," Tindall said.

"The fact is that if KiwiBuild had a contract with a large enough operator for, say, 5,000 houses, it could invest the necessary capital for these prices to materialize."

Major international companies have responded to KiwiBuild's "Request for Proposal", he said.

Previous governments built many homes, helping to make New Zealand a broad-based democracy with its own homes.

Tindall expects KiwiBuild to use some of the tricks of the past, including building standardization.

"Normalize homes, but have a range of maybe five different, so that it does not seem like everything is the same," he said.

"You go back to the 1950s, building state houses. They were all alike, but their goal was fantastic. These houses are always good.

"When I was a kid, I hated them because there was almost a shame in living in one of those, but not now, people buy them and love them."

He was optimistic for KiwiBuild, despite the many criticisms of the media.

"I think it's a mechanism for innovation, so yes, I am," he said.

Tindall laments the difficulties young Kiwis face in buying a house.

"In many European countries and even in the United Kingdom, if you can get a very good, well-managed rental and you do not pay too much, and people in the same place also occupy it, that's not the case. is not the end of the world.

"What is sad in New Zealand is that even though our aspirations have been incredibly ambitious all our lives, fewer and fewer Kiwis can buy their own homes from the past," he said. declared.

He recalled the relative ease with which people of his generation bought homes.

"When I was a young married man, we had the choice between a State Advances loan or an ASB loan.I was lucky enough to get the ASB loan, but if I did not, I would have the chance to get it. had not done, I could have gotten a 2% loan or something from State Advances.

"It was a social investment. Look how much better the country was at the time, "said Tindall.

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