ANZ New Zealand’s Te Ao Māori principal researcher, Mākere Hurst (inset) and Ōwhata Kōhanga Rākau project in Rotorua.
A housing initiative in Rotorua and near Tauranga is breaking down the barriers keeping Māori from home ownership.
They are barriers that go well beyond deposits and income, and into the way the financial system perceives Māori, according to New Zealand’s biggest bank.
“When someone who looks Māori walks into a bank, don’t assume who they are.
“Don’t look at their bank accounts and think, ‘you’re never going to own a home’.”
That message, delivered in ANZ’s September Ko Tū, Ko Rongo report, underlined how bias, a lack of Māori representation in banking and the absence of culturally appropriate advice continue to block Māori whānau from the property ladder.
The research was led by Mākere Hurst (Ngāti Rākaipaaka, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Rongomaiwahine), ANZ New Zealand’s Te Ao Māori principal researcher.
Hurst spent two months travelling the country talking to Māori about their housing journeys – the good and the bad.
She said that for many, the judgments of others reinforced their own fear that they might never own a home, and even a single negative interaction could be enough to turn whānau away from banks “for life”.
“We need someone to believe in us,” Hurst said.
An ANZ spokesperson said Rotorua whānau seeking finance for home ownership faced many of these barriers.
Ōwhata Kōhanga Rākau, part of the Ōwhata 2B & 7 Ahuwhenua Trust, partnered with ANZ to deliver 27 homes for sale in Ōwhata, Rotorua and 10 in Te Puke through a shared ownership model.
Four whānau have already been approved for loans, with construction of their homes due to begin next month.
The initiative was “game-changing” and “transformational” for whānau who thought they would never own a home, said Ōwhata Kōhanga Rākau chairman Jason Rogers.
He said some of the families ANZ was providing mortgages to had basically “given up” on home ownership completely because they believed they couldn’t afford it.
But “it’s really just a mindset”. When they actually sat down with someone, went through their finances and established a plan, they started to feel hope, Rogers said.
Hope that they could “build an inheritance for their future, for their kids, for their families”.
Under the scheme, whānau purchased 75% of a leasehold home while Ōwhata Kōhanga Rākau retained a 25% share.
The 109sq m, three-bedroom homes are priced from $683,000, while four-bedroom houses of 150–160sq m start at $763,000.
Families gradually buy out the trust’s share to gain full ownership, with up to 15 years to complete the process. Rogers said the interest-free scheme could save households as much as $170,000.
By lowering the upfront cost, mortgages were smaller and more affordable. In many cases, he said, repayments were equal to or less than market rents in Rotorua, where three-bedroom homes could reach about $700 a week.
The shared ownership homes were part of a wider mixed-tenure village in Ōwhata supported by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development’s Progressive Home Ownership Fund.
The project already included 38 affordable rentals at Ōwhata, with 20 for kaumatua and 18 for whānau. A further 28 social rental homes were under construction, due to be tenanted by March 2026.
Families in the affordable rentals paid about $550 a week for a three-bedroom home, 80% of market rent, Rogers said.
The goal was to create a “continuum” of housing that supported whānau to “move up the ladder” from social renting to affordable renting, and ultimately into home ownership.
“It’s not just about building houses, it’s about creating pathways for whānau to build security and opportunity for the next generation,” Rogers said.
The Ko Tū, Ko Rongo report said Māori home ownership had been declining nationally for decades, with just 27.5% owning or partly owning their homes at the 2023 Census, compared with more than 60% of the wider population.
Māori were also overrepresented in housing support statistics and more likely to be living in poor-quality housing or experience crowding, the report said.
If current trends continued, the report said almost all Māori could be renters by 2061.
Māori whānau interviewed for the report called for banks to work with iwi and Māori land trusts to better understand the complexities of building on collectively owned land, and to provide financial advice grounded in te ao Māori values.
Rogers said Ōwhata Kōhanga Rākau projects in Rotorua and Te Puke were part of a broader programme, with more than 90 homes under way across its sites.
He hoped the model would encourage other iwi and land trusts to pursue similar initiatives.
Annabel Reid is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke’s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.