Budget boost for state housing

State housing stocks will be boosted by an extra 318 homes as a result of nearly $100 million in extra funding in this year's Budget.

The houses will be in addition to 2393 houses already planned and will be introduced over four years.

Nearly three-quarters of the new houses would be in Auckland, where waiting lists were longest, Housing Minister Steve Maharey said.

"Some of the funding will also go towards converting 80 three-bedroom houses into four-bedroom or larger homes to better suit bigger families," he said in a statement.

"Currently only about 8 per cent of Housing New Zealand houses have four or more bedrooms. Forecasts suggest that figure needs to be much higher and reconfiguring existing houses is often the more cost-effective way of meeting that need."

The $100m is part of nearly $260m allocated to housing over the next four years, including:

* $60m for the modernisation programme, on top of $30.5m already planned over the next three years;

* $63m to encourage greater involvment in housing by local government and sector groups such as churches and iwi;

* $26m for an extra 77 community houses, to be used by a range of community groups offering residential services such as women's refuges;

* $5.3m for a two-year pilot home ownership mortgage insurance scheme, scheduled to start later this year; and

* $1m to expand Housing Ministry tenancy information and education services.

- NZPA