The Government is beefing up its state house sell-off programme, announcing plans to offer up 2500 Christchurch properties to private social housing providers.
It represents 39 percent of Housing New Zealand's current state housing stock in the city, and will include all properties in the suburbs of Shirley, Riccarton, and Bryndwr.
The state-owned housing provider will keep ownership of 3,900 properties in Parklands, Aranui, Linwood, Spreydon, Hoon Hay and Hornby.
It's the second round of state houses to be sold, after more than 1000 were sold in Tauranga earlier this year.
It also comes after a failed deal in Invercargill, where the only interested bidder for the 348 state houses pulled out.
Housing New Zealand Minister Bill English says diverse ownership of social housing stock is important.
"In Christchurch, Housing New Zealand has done an excellent job of repairing and rebuilding its earthquake-damaged stock but one in five of those properties are underutilised," he says.
"There is now an opportunity for a private provider to renew, reconfigure and develop the properties to better match demand, and to finish earthquake remediation work."
Newshub.
