Secure Home
Progressive home ownership

We’re offering Secure Home to low-to-median income families with children who would find it difficult to buy a home without a reasonable level of financial and non-financial support.

Register your interest here

Our Housing Support Advisor will guide you through the process and help confirm if you qualify.

Here are some of the guidelines we’ll use:

• You’re a family with children and at least one person in your household will have New Zealand Residency or New Zealand Citizenship.

• You won’t own or have any shares in any other properties or land anywhere in the world.

• You’ll be a first home buyer or a second chancer (someone who has owned a home before but is back in the same financial situation as a first-time buyer e.g. due to a divorce).

• You’ll commit to living in the house as your main residence for at least three years. That means you’re not buying it as an investment property.

• At least one of the applicants is in full time employment.

• A single person with a child or children in their household applying for Secure Home can earn up-to $95,000 a year before tax.

• For a couple with children, eligibility is generally limited to households with a combined income before tax of no more than $150,000.

• You’ll have the means to service a low-deposit mortgage but won’t have a sufficient deposit to buy in the open housing market at current house prices.

• You’ll need to have a minimum of 10% of the purchase price as a deposit.

• You’ll need approval for a home loan from our partnering bank Westpac, sufficient o mee the purchase price when added with your deposit.

The leasehold is priced at the cost of construction. The land value is not added to the leasehold purchase cost.

The prices for leases are:

• 2-bedroom home: $385,000

• 3-bedroom home $500,000

Your initial costs will include:

• The leasehold purchase price (upfront payment). You’ll use a home loan to buy the leasehold. Secure Home is supported by Westpac. You will have to meet Westpac’s lending criteria and provide a minimum 10% deposit to support your home loan. You’ll also have to pay any home loan fees stipulated by the bank.

• Lawyer’s fees. As with any leasehold home purchase, you should get a lawyer to help you through the purchase process.

Ongoing costs include:

• Mortgage repayments to your bank. Westpac’s mortgage repayment calculator can give you a rough idea of what a home loan might look like based on the loan amount, interest rate, term of the loan and repayment schedule. Westpac offers low-deposit mortgages designed for Secure Home. If you qualify, a 10% deposit could help you get into an ŌCHT Secure Home.

• Ground rent: You’ll pay an annual ground rent, currently based on 1.5% of land value, which will be established at the time you enter Secure Home. The land value is locked in at the start and the ground rent is adjusted each year for inflation, with any increase capped at 2.0%. For example, if inflation increases 3%, the ground rent increases 3%.

• Body corporate levy: All property owners pay an annual fee for the maintenance of the shared spaces in the development. The levy also includes house insurance.

You will also have other standard homeownership costs, such as contents insurance, Christchurch City and Canterbury Regional council rates, and home maintenance costs.

This information is a guide only. Please contact ŌCHT’s Housing Support Advisor to learn more. Also check out the Secure Home Agreement on this page.

A Secure Home household has many of the obligations any other householder has.

• You need to meet all the financial commitments related to Secure Home, including the annual ground lease and body corporate levy.

• You need to meet your mortgage commitments and pay council rates and insurances.

• All maintenance, including scheduled maintenance requirements, are your responsibility. You’ll need to keep your home well maintained, to ensure it’s in good condition throughout the life of your leasehold. This also helps maintain its value if you sell your leasehold back to ŌCHT. You’ll also need to let ŌCHT carry out regular property inspections, to ensure integrity of the building is maintained.

• You’ll need to stay in the leasehold for at least the first three years of your 100-year lease. After that you can sell the home back to ŌCHT at any time, for any reason. You can't on-sell the property in the private market.

• You can’t own a second home, either in part or full, and this must be your permanent home.

• You can’t sub-lease your Secure Home.

• You can’t overcrowd the home.

Your new home is in a new development that’s under a Body Corporate, and you’ll need to participate in and comply with all the rules of the Body Corporate.

This is a guide only. You’ll find more details in our Secure Home Agreement.

The Body Corporate is made of unit title holders. As you have a right to occupy the property for 100 years, you are considered a lessee.

The owner of the property title (that’s ŌCHT) can pass on some costs to lease holders.

These costs can help cover expenses such as insurance, maintenance repairs and shared utilities and grounds in common areas.

When you sign-on to Secure Loan, you commit to the property for at least three years.

When you no longer need the house, ŌCHT has the exclusive right to buy it back at the price you originally paid plus an adjustment for inflation, maintenance and any approved alterations and improvements to the property, less any money owed to ŌCHT and the value of any outstanding scheduled maintenance items.

You can’t pass on the home to a next of kin automatically, but we may be able to work with whanau to work through the eligibility criteria and help evaluate if they have the financial means to enter the programme on their own merit.

Complete this form to register your interest.

Once you submit the form, our Housing Support Advisor will be in touch to guide you through the application process and answer any questions.