A new approach to home ownership from the Greens could help middle-income earners who are struggling to pull together enough funds for a house deposit.

The Green Party's rent-to-own housing policy would see the government own a house but rent it out, with that rent money ring fenced and put towards a deposit for the house.

Infometrics Senior Economist Brad Olsen told Kate Hawkesby the initiative is worth trying.

"This is a way you can get over that deposit hurdle, because that is a key one for a lot of Kiwis. We have house prices that are going higher, we have rent prices that are going higher."

However, he says there's one glaring problem when it comes to housing availability is an issue.

"The Government still needs to have a housing stock that it can rent out to people and those people can buy over time. What that means is the government is going to be losing the housing stock that it previously had."