Thousands of first-home buyers in Queenstown and Dunedin have signed up to the Government's affordable housing scheme without knowing when or where any houses will be built.
Between July 4 and 17 there were 35,496 registrations of interest in the KiwiBuild programme, and of those 1242 wanted a home in Dunedin and 2484 in Queenstown.
About two-thirds of the applications came from Auckland (22,891).
The Government has estimated there is a new housing shortfall of about 1600 in Queenstown and 611 in Dunedin.
Other centres with high levels of interest included Wellington (7176), Tauranga (4344), Hamilton (4335) and Christchurch (3176).
People were able to select more than one area of interest.
A Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) spokesman said the number of applications should not be taken as a distribution list of where any homes would be built, nor the number built in each area.
While at least half of the 100,000 homes planned would be built in Auckland, there had been no decision on the location of the other builds.
Applicants who met the criteria would be entered into a ballot system when developments in their area opened up.
Only New Zealand residents who are first-home buyers and earn under $180,000 for a couple or $120,000 for a single person would be allowed to buy a KiwiBuild home.
Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford has said 1000 homes would be built in 2018-19, 5000 in 2019-20, 10,000 in 2020-21 and 12,000 a year on average through to 2028.
If the homes were built on the current need for housing, 2229 would go to Queenstown, 851 to Dunedin and 1000 to Christchurch, a cabinet paper revealed.
The paper also suggested KiwiBuild homes in Queenstown could cost $650,000 or less for a three-bedroom home, $600,000 or less for a two-bedroom and $500,000 or less for a one-bedroom home - the same as in Auckland.
In other areas the dwellings would cost between $300,000 and $500,000.
Dunedin's lower quartile house price is about $300,000.
