- Kāinga Ora sold a Wellington site for $4.625m, taking a $5.25m loss.
- The sale followed a government shake-up and the land was bought by Jaafar Holdings Ltd.
- Kāinga Ora plans to sell another site on Adelaide Road, which it bought for over $4.1m.
Kāinga Ora has taken a $5.25 million hit on a piece of land in Wellington it bought three years ago for close to $10m.
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Kāinga Ora had planned to build 280 homes on a former Caltex petrol station site, near Wellington’s Basin Reserve, but scrapped the development and listed the property for sale following the Government’s shake-up of the agency.
It sold the 2000sqm site on Adelaide Road, in Mount Cook, for $4.625m in October last year, below the independent market valuation of $6.05m, which it received just before listing it for sale in July.
Kāinga Ora acting general manager of urban development and delivery Nick Howcroft defended selling the property at a loss, telling OneRoof that the sale price was reflective of what buyers were willing to pay.
Plans for an apartment block on the 28 Adelaide Road site were scrapped by the previous owner before the site was sold to Kainga Ora in 2022. Photo / Supplied
“We purchased 28 Adelaide Road in 2022 when our focus was on rapidly growing housing delivery, and the property market was considerably stronger. Market conditions have since changed, particularly in Wellington, and the sale price reflects the highest of the four offers we received.”
The property was bought by Auckland-based property group Jaafar Holdings Limited, and Kāinga Ora said it was confident the land would still be used for housing. “Releasing the land creates an opportunity for others to deliver much-needed market housing in the area,” Howcroft said.
Kāinga Ora picked up the site in 2022. The previous owners had planned to build a boutique apartment block of one- and two-bedroom units priced at $715,000 and above.
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The site is currently zoned for residential development. A resource consent was granted last year, allowing Wellington City Mission to use it for temporary car parking.
Jaafar Holdings Ltd did not respond to OneRoof’s request for comment.
Kāinga Ora plans to sell off a smaller 927sqm section at 132 Adelaide Road in the next few months. Kāinga Ora paid $4.104m for the site in February 2023 and had planned to deliver about 60 homes there. The property has an RV of $2.61m.
The property at 28 Adelaide Road is not the only Wellington property Kāinga Ora has sold well below its independent valuation. In July 2025, the Government agency sold the Dixon Street flats to Taranaki Whānui Limited, the commercial organisation set up to manage the Treaty settlement package for Wellington iwi, for $1.04m despite it having an independent valuation of around $4m.
The property was then resold three weeks later to developer The Wellington Company for $3.04m.
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