'No fluff, All facts' - Local event aims to move Māngere renters to home owners
- 275times
- Aug 7, 2025
- 3 min read
A recent housing event driven by Māngere locals has helped a number of families get started on their journey towards home ownership.
What began as a casual conversation between Paki, the entrepreneur behind the Haddon House burger business, and Munish Bhatt, Māngere Branch Manager at Barfoot & Thompson, soon grew into a full-fledged community education evening. Both shared a common goal: to see more Māngere residents owning homes in their own neighbourhood.
Paki and Munish were talking about home ownership in Māngere when Munish expressed how he wanted to see more locals owning homes.
“We want more people in Māngere, buying homes in Māngere.”
Paki couldn’t agree more. From there, the idea took shape. Paki teamed up with Johnny Aukusitino from Māngere Barfoot & Thompson, and together they combined their networks and expertise to organise an event that would make the path to home ownership clearer for locals. They brought in mortgage brokers, lawyers, and relied on Aukusitino’s background in building and real estate to give residents practical insights.
For Paki, it was personal.
“The only way I got a home was by having someone who knew the system, who could translate it back to me so I understood. You need those experts,” he said.
He says the event was aimed at being "no fluff, just facts" to get locals informed and take the first steps toward owning their own place.
“It really was about bringing people together — especially people renting in Māngere who want to be homeowners — and just getting the information out,” Paki explained.
The need is clear. According to the 2023 NZ Census, 59.2% of families in the Māngere-Ōtāhuhu area are renting — well above the national average of 34%.
Mary (not her real name), a Māngere local who currently rents, knows the struggle firsthand. After several disappointing attempts to buy a home for her family, she was ready to give up.
“To be honest, before this all popped up, I was already like, oh yeah, I’m done. We’ll just rent,” she admitted.
But when she saw Paki’s post about the event, hope sparked again.
“Once he posted about it, it was only a few minutes and I was already like yup, I’m coming,” Mary said.
From Aukusitino’s perspective, many locals are closer to owning than they realise.
“If the median rent right now is about $600 a week, and servicing a $750,000 mortgage is roughly $800, that’s only a $200 gap to figure out. So you’re pretty close already,” he noted.
Mary left the event encouraged, especially after learning how family trusts and other tools could help both buy a home and protect it.
“I was so happy when they brought up the trusts — we’d been thinking about it, but didn’t know how to actually move forward. Tonight was really good.”
Aukusitino reflected on a successful evening, the need to have more information available to locals and to talk to someone you can trust.
“The turnout tonight was really good and just from a lot of the questions that we were getting, a lot of them were really common, especially just around not knowing where to start and not knowing who you should have in your corner.”
Call Johnny Aukusitino on 021-02906981 for more information.
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