Receiver optimistic over buyer interest in eHome

Houses by eHome in the Waimahia Inlet in Weymouth, Auckland. Photo / Nick Reed

The receiver of the country's largest off-site house manufacturer is optimistic about selling it after 25 parties made their interest known.

Tony Maginness of McDonald Vague said he was negotiating to sell eHome and was down to about 10 parties.

The Kumeu-based housing prefabricator owes creditors $17.5 million but was put into receivership last month, leaving many in the sector worried about whether they would get paid.

That now depends on what price Maginness gets for the business, capable of putting up a house on a site within eight hours.

One creditor said he was owed $25,000 after working with many staff and he is unsure whether he will be paid.

A former eHome staff member said developers profited at eHome's expense after contracts were mistakenly under-priced.

Maginness said he hoped to be able to announce the sale within three weeks and has had interest from Australia.

"We don't know if it will cover all the creditors," he said.

The business had three active contracts for Housing NZ Corporation on a number of sites, the Housing Foundation's 282-residence Special Housing Area at Waimahia Inlet in South Auckland and the Community of Refuge Trust (Cort Community Housing).

It is now building more than 20 residences but all were at different stages at the time of receivership, Maginness said.

eHome received a $287,500 Government grant before Prime Minister John Key opened its Kumeu factory where about $6 million of equipment is turning out housing components.

Peter Jeffries, chief executive of Cort Community Housing, said eHome was building 11 residences worth $3.5 million on a Mt Wellington site and the receiver had indicated the work would be finished around July.

The land was bought from Housing NZ and the new places would be rented to those in high need or on a state house waiting list, Jeffries said.

"We're trying to prove you can take a suburban section and intensify it but still fit into the neighbourhood. We don't think the Unitary Plan will do anything for affordable housing because it puts restrictions on intensification ... To deliver affordable housing, you need to have this sort of density," he said of the Mt Wellington site.