About school houses

There are 3 types of school houses. Each type is managed differently, depending on whether it’s owned by the school board or by the Crown.

In the past, we provided school houses to help schools recruit teachers in areas where it was difficult to find housing. Most houses are still used for this – others, when not immediately required for teachers, are leased short-term to private tenants.

There are 3 types of school houses:

  • core houses
  • non-core houses, and
  • caretaker houses.

Core houses

Most core houses are owned, funded, and managed by school boards. In these cases, the school board acts as the landlord and is responsible for tenancy arrangements.

Other core houses are owned by the Crown and managed by us – like new school houses, for example.

If you’re not sure about the ownership or management of a particular core house, contact your property advisor for clarification.

Non-core houses

School boards have no legal or financial interest in non-core houses. They’re owned by the Crown and managed by the National Housing Contractor. We take responsibility for all costs associated with non-core houses. 

info

Colliers NZ is our National Housing Contractor. If you have any queries regarding a teacher housing property or a tenancy-related issue, contact Colliers directly. You can call them on 0800 495 888, or email them at moe.residential@colliers.com.

We’re proactively disposing of Crown-owned non-core houses through the Crown disposal process – you can find out more about how we do this on our surplus school property page.

Surplus school property

Caretaker houses

We originally provided caretaker houses to schools that found it difficult to get tradespeople, or where security was needed. However, we don’t provide caretaker houses to schools now. The ones that remain are still owned by us, but they’re managed by school boards. Rent from caretaker houses is collected by the National Housing Contractor and returned to the Crown.

New school houses

Occasionally, we'll fund a new school house. New school houses become core houses that we manage.

Schools must meet all the following conditions before we’ll consider funding a new school house.

  • The school is more than 30 kilometres from a centre with more than 5,000 people.
  • Travelling to school is far or difficult.
  • There is a limited number of rental houses available in the area.
  • There are more full-time equivalent (FTE) teaching positions at school than the number of properties available for rent in the area.
  • The school’s long-term roll is stable.

For more information on new school houses, talk to your property advisor.