The New Zealand Housing Fund Te Piringa: A Plain-English Guide to Our Investment Memorandum

What is Te Piringa?

Te Piringa is a Social and Affordable Housing Equity Fund. In practice, that means it buys a portfolio of newly built, fully tenanted social and affordable rental homes across Aotearoa, and holds them for the long term, generating both a financial return for investors and a real, measurable improvement in the lives of the families who live in them.

The Fund is looking to raise up to $73 million in committed capital, which will help fund a portfolio with a total asset value of around $205 million. Home Foundation, our parent charitable trust, is backing this with up to $47 million of its own cornerstone investment, including $12 million where Home Foundation has chosen to take no or reduced distributions for the first five years, specifically to lift the returns available to other investors. We wanted our own capital working hardest at the point it matters most.
 

How the model actually works

A lot of housing investment carries construction risk: cost overruns, delays, the works. Te Piringa is deliberately built to avoid that. The Fund only acquires homes that are already complete and fully tenanted, built in the last three years to Homestar 6 or above, with construction guarantees still in place. No development risk, no half-finished sites.

Once a property is in the portfolio, at least 83% of homes are social housing, underpinned by government-backed rental supplements secured through 15 to 25-year contracts with Community Housing Providers (CHPs) like the Salvation Army, Kāinga Maha, and Habitat for Humanity. A further 11% are affordable rentals for key workers (nurses, teachers, and emergency services staff) at discounted rents. The remaining homes sit at market rental, giving the portfolio a mix of tenures and a bit more liquidity.

We also give our CHP partners a 30% share of capital gains on each project, so as the portfolio grows in value, so does the balance sheet capacity of the community organisations doing the on-the-ground work. It’s a genuine partnership model, not just a landlord relationship.

The homes, and the people in them

Right now, the Fund’s initial portfolio spans 289 homes across 13 developments, from Kerikeri in the Far North to Karamū in Christchurch, with clusters in Auckland, Hamilton, Nelson, and Ōpōtiki. Four more properties (Te Pākau Maru, Karamū, Ōpōtiki, and Kerikeri) are being purchased at launch, with further developments like Nelson, Hamilton, Te Atatū, Manurewa, and Mt Albert in the pipeline.

Behind every one of those addresses is a family. One resident at Te Pākau Maru in Christchurch put it simply: “As a single mum, it’s been amazing knowing exactly what I’m paying and that I can meet those weekly payments, it’s given me real peace of mind and more time with the girls.” Another, at Karamū: “Karamū meant I could provide stability for them. Somewhere to call home instead of going back to a motel every day.”

That’s the outcome we’re chasing. Warm, dry, secure homes, and a bit more room to breathe in the weekly budget.
 

What it means for investors

Te Piringa is targeting a forecast total return of 11.6% p.a. over the life of the Fund, with an average cash distribution to Class A investors of 6.0% p.a. before tax over the first five years. Investors who want more certainty around timing can opt for Class R Redeemable Units, targeting a 5.2% p.a. average cash distribution, redeemable after five full financial years.

It’s an evergreen fund with no fixed end date, though liquidity is available through the Catalist secondary market, and we expect a mechanism for retail investors to access the Fund via Catalist in 2026 as well.

A few things worth being upfront about: this offer is open to wholesale investors only under the Financial Markets Conduct Act, with a minimum committed capital of $100,000. It’s not a regulated offer, and it’s not suitable for everyone. Like any property investment, returns depend on factors including rental income, capital growth, interest rates, and the performance of our CHP partners, and these are covered in full in the Risks section of the IM.

Why we built it this way

Government alone can’t close a housing gap this size, and it never was going to. What’s needed is private and philanthropic capital working alongside government income support, CHPs, and iwi, all pointed at the same outcome. That’s the thinking behind Te Piringa, and it’s why we’ve built a structure where returns and impact aren’t traded off against each other. They’re designed to move together.

We’ll be measuring that impact properly too, tracking outcomes across affordability, agency, quality, and neighbourhood for every household in the portfolio, benchmarked against Treasury’s Cost Benefit Analysis framework and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

New Zealand offers a stable government, a resilient economy, and an S&P AAA credit rating, one of the most financially secure environments in the world to be doing this kind of work in. We think that matters, and we think the timing is right.