Kiwibuild: 47 complete, 236 under construction

Housing Minister Phil Twyford.

Kiwibuild has updated its progress after the Government admitted yesterday it will fall well short of its initial target of building 1000 homes by July this year.

Latest figures show 47 homes have been completed under the scheme so far with 236 currently under construction. The previous number completed was 33.

Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford has revised the first target down to 300 although Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters still maintains the 1000 figure was still achievable.

But whether KiwiBuild can reach Labour's goal of 100,000 high-quality affordable homes in a decade is unknown.

According to the latest Kiwibuild announcement, 293 homes have been "contracted and committed" for completion by the end of June. Some contracts were still being finalised for this financial year.

Overall 10,160 homes have been contracted and committed under the scheme.

So far 53 homes have actually been sold, including homes sold off the plans.

There had been just 289 homes prequalified, with 47,853 registered expressions of interests.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday defended the Government's flagship KiwiBuild programme despite it being drastically behind schedule.

"Ultimately, the true goal has been to address the housing issues we have in New Zealand and that includes state housing, that includes community housing, that includes addressing homelessness, and it includes affordable housing," Ardern said, speaking to reporters from Switzerland where she was attending the World Economic Forum.

"We set some goals around KiwiBuild and even if we're falling shy of those, we are still building affordable houses, just not as fast as we want and as many as what we want as quickly as we want," she said.

National's housing spokeswoman Judith Collins said Twyford was letting down thousands of Kiwis.

"If he can't organise the delivery of 1000 houses a year, why on earth would we believe the minister when he says he's planning on building 10,000 houses a year," Collins said.