Five Auckland KiwiBuild apartments fail to sell on ballot, offered up on a first come, first served basis to those who qualify

Another five KiwiBuild properties have failed to sell off the ballot and are now being offered to anyone willing to buy them that qualifies for the programme, on a first come first serve, basis.

The properties are in Auckland's 340 Onehunga Mall development and consist of two studios and three one bedroom apartments priced from $380k to $500k.

A total of 25 apartments were originally available, and 20 have now sold.

However, after the winner and runners-up fell through on five apartments they are now back on the market.

One of the apartments back up for grabs, a one bedroom on the second floor, had five people in the original ballot. The other four had eight, 10, 11 and 14 people in their ballots.

After the apartments became available again an email went out to a mailing list of people who had attended the 340 Onehunga Mall open days and registered interest.

When asked why the remaining people who had gone through the process to enter the ballot weren't contacted by KiwiBuild for first refusal on the properties, Bayleys residential sales apartments and projects Jon Fisher said the developers got the green light to offer the apartments to anyone interested in KiwiBuild.

A spokesperson for KiwiBuild apologised to the people in the original ballot who weren't contacted first when the apartments came back on the market.

"It's a learning process," he told 1 NEWS.

The spokesperson further clarified KiwiBuild's position, saying there are no expectations that KiwiBuild homes would sell off the ballot.

"There is no expectation that all KiwiBuild homes offered off the plans will sell through the ballot. In the @340 Onehunga development, most of the KiwiBuild homes have already sold through the ballot and the rest are now available to keen eligible buyers.

"It is standard building industry practice to lock in some sales before the homes are completed. Typically, not all homes sell off the plans and any that are left are sold once they are completed. KiwiBuild is no different."

A re-ballot for the five properties had originally been planned for the new year according to the email, but has been put on hold while interest is sought for a non-ballot traditional sale.

A 1 NEWS story saw the 340 Onehunga Mall development have to be re-sized when it was first announced as the studio apartment plans were to small for banks to lend on.

The news comes after the deadline had to be extended in Wanaka for a Kiwibuild development as three of the 10 houses there failed to sell due to lack of interest in the original ballot.