5. Question No. 5—Housing and Urban DevelopmentHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban DevelopmentQuestion No. 5—Housing and Urban Development5. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: How many unique applications have successfully pre-qualified as eligible KiwiBuild buyers and how many of these occurred in the last three months?Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Thank you Mr Speaker. Five hundred and twenty-six unique applications have had their eligibility as KiwiBuild buyers confirmed; 145 of these occurred in the three months to 31 May.Hon Judith Collins: Does the criteria for KiwiBuild pre-qualification reflect his statement that this Government is committed to providing the opportunity for home ownership to families who are currently locked out of purchasing their first home."?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes.Hon Judith Collins: Is he concerned that official documents show that five of the pre-qualified KiwiBuild buyers had deposits of between $500000 to $650000—effectively meaning they could buy their KiwiBuild house with cash?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No. The data the member is referring to is raw data unchecked. It's very clear that for a number of the entries the data had been entered into the online form on the KiwiBuild website by prospective KiwiBuild buyers incorrectly. In fact Radio New Zealand who first reported this story was told by the KiwiBuild unit that a number of the examples where people had entered what seemed to be a large deposit were cases where in fact people had assumed they were supposed to enter the total budget for the house. So for the purposes that the member is trying to use it the data is quite unreliable.Marja Lubeck: What is the average household income for people who have bought a KiwiBuild home so far?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The average household income of a KiwiBuild buyer is $104000 a year and 56 percent of families who are KiwiBuild buyers are below that income level with a quarter of KiwiBuild families below $80000. The majority of KiwiBuild buyers have individual income of below $65000 and this is important because homeownership has fallen 13 percent for families earning between $97000 and $117000 since 2007. These people are exactly who the KiwiBuild policy is for.Hon Judith Collins: So how robust is the KiwiBuild qualification process if people can simply qualify with incorrect information?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: They don't qualify on the basis of that information. All people who complete pre-qualification have all of that information vetted individually by staff of the KiwiBuild unit.Hon Judith Collins: What concern does he have that documents show that 150 of the pre-qualified KiwiBuild buyers were not New Zealand citizens—the very people he said before he wanted to help?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I have no concern at all. Those rules are very clearly laid out for prospective KiwiBuild buyers and their applications are all subject to a detailed vetting by staff from the KiwiBuild unit.Marja Lubeck: How does the KiwiBuild buyer criteria compare to other programmes such as HomeStart or the Welcome Home Loan?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I thank the member for that question because the KiwiBuild eligibility criteria treat assets in exactly the same way as the Axis Series programme the HomeStart deposit assistance and the Welcome Home Loan policies that have been operating for much of the last decade. Those policies provide direct financial assistance to buyers and do not contain an asset test and do not try to prevent families or parents helping their children into their homes. I've seen reports that the lack of an asset test for KiwiBuild is unfair and I'd say to Ms Collins that she should have raised that issue around the Cabinet table in 2014."