Transforming how we look after our homes

Maintaining our homes is a vital part of our role as a social housing provider, and it means better quality housing for our tenants. Additionally through the retrofitting of our older homes, we undertake renovations which adds another 50 years to its life, providing healthier homes.

New operating models and system changes will see us deliver this work more efficiently and cost effectively with estimated yearly savings of around $240 million from mid-2026 onwards. We’ll also continue to retrofit hundreds of older houses in the coming years.

Importantly, we’ll be generating significant savings without compromising the quality of work or outcomes for our tenants.

These important improvements we are making in the maintenance and asset management space are one component of the wider work Kāinga Ora has underway so we refocus on our core functions of providing and managing state-owned social housing in a financially sustainable way.

We won’t be doing less maintenance – we’ll be doing it better.

New ways of working have been implemented already, and more change will come throughout 2025 and beyond.

We’re looking closer at what can be either repaired or replaced, so that we are choosing the most appropriate level of maintenance for the job. This has already eliminated unnecessary work and delivered savings without compromising the condition of the home or what’s needed for our tenants.

We’re improving the data we hold on our homes, right down to the condition key features, and we’re introducing new technology such as drones to enable better assessment of repair and upgrade work.

For our maintenance partners and trades, it means walking onto a job knowing the right work has been requested. That saves time, and the financial benefits are promising, too.

In the 2023/24 financial year we achieved savings of approximately $30 million in maintenance and approximately $50 million in retrofits.

The important maintenance work is still being done – it’s the efficient work management that is delivering the savings.