The Minister of Housing and Urban Development has announced the first KiwiBuild homes have been built and are ready for sale.
The 18 houses are in the McLennan development in Papakura, Auckland, and will be sold through a ballot opening on September 10, which will run for four weeks.
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There are 12 three-bedroom homes available - each of which will sell for $579,000 - and also six four-bedroom houses, which will sell for $649,000 apiece.
John Penny, the director of Penny Homes, said he originally signed on to build 10 houses, but an extra eight were added for completion within 14 weeks.
"This has been a challenge this one because of the tight timeframes. We had to pump a lot of staff in last week or so because we had to have these finished."
An additional 58 KiwiBuild homes will also be built at McLennan next year, with Phil Twyford promising more to be announced for the Waikato, Taranaki, Auckland and Queenstown Lakes area.
"A further 12 properties are under construction at the McLennan development and will be completed before Christmas, including seven terraced two-bedroom homes and five four-bedroom homes," he said in a statement.
Mr Twyford said he thought families would be getting more than their money's worth.
But Mr Penny wasn't sure how much money he would make on the project.
"Until those final bills roll in I won't really know the bottom line," he said.
Mr Twyford labelled the houses as a milestone in the Government's plan to build 100,000 homes over 10 years.
There is a high demand for KiwiBuild houses, with 42,000 people having signed up to the programme that is promising to build 1000 homes in its first year.
But the rate KiwiBuild homes are completed has received criticism, including from the National Party's Housing spokesperson, Judith Collins.
On Friday Ms Collins, who is also the electorate MP for Papakura, posted a Facebook video touring the McLennan development and said National had been building there for years.
Newshub.
