30 Aug 2015

Thousands of state houses up for sale

7:39 am on 30 August 2015

The Government is about to begin selling up to 2000 state houses to social housing providers, with homes in Tauranga and Invercargill first on the block.

State housing in Upper Hutt.

Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson

About 1140 houses in Tauranga and another 370 in Invercargill will be sold to registered providers from tomorrow as part of the Social Reform Housing programme.

Tenants affected in Invercargill and Tauranga will be able to stay in their homes when they are sold, with the properties to remain as social housing unless the Government decides otherwise.

Consultation with iwi has found Ngati Ranginui has 115 Right of Refusal properties in Tauranga and Ngai Tahu has three in Invercargill.

Those properties will not go up for sale while talks continue.

The Government plans to sell up to 8000 state houses to community groups by 2017.

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