First properties in affordable housing initiative hit market

Otago Daily Times

23-07-2025

Houses with a $100,000 incentive for first-home buyers have arrived on the market as a Dunedin businessman's philanthropic endeavour starts bearing fruit.
Last year, Roger Fewtrell announced plans to develop affordable homes across Dunedin and sell them to first-home buyers.
Yesterday, he told the Otago Daily Times about 170 sites had been secured for the project — he estimated about 40 properties would be built in the next year.
"We've bought properties and some of them have got existing houses," Mr Fewtrell said.
"We've subdivided the land off that we'll build other houses on."
Those existing houses were to be redeveloped and two completed examples — 50 and 80 Panmure Ave, Calton Hill — went to market last week.
"We've got a new roof and new windows in one of them, and the other one's all been tidied up," he said.
"They've both got a new carpet and all that sort of stuff, new paint — they're looking pretty nice and tidy and liveable."
The newly subdivided back sections would be developed for housing alongside an adjacent 16 acre block of land.
"Eventually we'll build 68 houses in that 16-acre block."
Three more redeveloped houses were expected to go on sale in the coming weeks, he said.
The master plan was to build 250 houses and "probably lose $25 million ... about $100,000 a house if you do the maths," Mr Fewtrell said.
"We're well under way with it."
Houses had to be sold at or above cost as required by Inland Revenue Te Tari Taake, he said.
"The way we get around it is, I personally chip in $100,000 towards the deposit, which means [buyers] get a decent deposit and a smaller mortgage so they can afford to make the payments."
Mr Fewtrell said some of the redeveloped houses might be too expensive for first-home buyers even if he chipped in.
"We look for first-home buyers for those ones, but if we can't find [them], we'll just sell them on the open market and put that money back into building more."
It would be between 6 and 12 months before the first new builds were complete, he said.
Work on a subdivision consented for 18 lots above Ross Home in North East Valley had begun and was expected to be one of the first finished, along with developments in Kaikorai Valley and Green Island.
"We're not selling off the plan.
"We want to complete the build so that people can actually walk through the house and have a good look at it, see if they can afford it and if they like it."
Mr Fewtrell said prospective owners were required to have a 10% deposit — "otherwise I don't want to talk to them".
"They've got to be able to service their own mortgage and then I'm happy to chip in the $100,000 to help them get into their own house.
Mr Fewtrell co-founded Southern Hospitality in 1989 — a hospitality and food service industry supplier that grew to 12 showrooms nationwide.
It was bought by Australian firm Reward Supply Co in 2023.
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