Iwi looks at overseas partnerships to build cost-effective mobile houses

Paora Stanley wants to help is people into their own homes. Photo / Screenshot

Previously published in Te Ao Māori news

Ngāi Te Rangi is partnering with US-based home manufacturer Cavco Industries to bring cost-effective housing to iwi members.

With four facilities in Texas, North Carolina, California and Arizona, Cavco can build a three-bedroom house for around NZ$240,000, which includes the build and transportation from the US to New Zealand, then to wherever the buyer wants to put the house via trailer.

That is according to Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Te Rangi Paora Stanley, who is closing a deal with an indigenous bank in Nuevo, California, which could provide mortgage loans to house buyers at 4.8 per cent. New Zealand’s average lending rate is close to 6 per cent.

“Everyone goes to the US and brings back Mustangs and Camaros, we’re bringing back houses,” Stanley says.

“[You can get] a 75sq m house, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. fully insulated, internal heating for just over $100,000. Imagine supplying a three-bedroom house to your people for $100,000.

During his visit to Nuevo, Stanley says a chance encounter acknowledging the local tribe led to conversations about what the trip to America was for. After explaining that the iwi was looking at a cross-border banking system in London, the tribe leader revealed that the tribe owned a bank.

“We started talking with the chief executive and bank manager, and we asked, ‘Can you give loans in Aotearoa?’ [They said] ‘I think we can’. So from there, it was extraordinary; it came from out of nowhere.”

The next step is sourcing affordable land, and Tauranga is being considered as an option to place the houses as it goes before the board for a decision.

“What would happen if we had blocks of land that we could sell to the people, not at the $200,000 that it’s worth but at $10,000 so that it’s affordable? You take a hit, but you take a hit for your people.

“That’s a hell of a thing to consider. It’s a heck of a loss of money in some respects but you’re claiming it back in health and wellbeing. It’s better for your people.”

The first houses will be going to cyclone-stricken places such as Hawke’s Bay to replace damaged homes.