Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she's not giving up the focus on building more affordable homes, while accepting KiwiBuild hasn't met expectations.

"We've had a year essentially of trying to establish an intervention that no one's ever tried before," she told the AM Show on Tuesday.

"KiwiBuild is only one part of the agenda. It's the non-subsidised build programme to try and make sure there are just more houses in the bracket of affordable," she says.

"It was the bit that was new. No-one's ever tried this before."

Other policies that were flagships for the Government included stopping the sale of residential homes to foreign buyers, closing some tax loopholes on rental housing, and extending the bright-line test for paying tax on the sale of housing.

The mixture of those things meant first home buyers now made up 24 per cent of the market, compared to 18 per cent previously, and the Auckland market had cooled

"We are going to have a Government build programme. We absolutely maintain that we have had failure in the housing market, but we also are being really honest about this. It has not been easy," Jacinda says.

"That is not a reason to give up, but we do need to make sure that we're constantly learning from the experience that we have had so far."

The Government was trying to solve two problems.

"One is that we do not have enough affordable homes being built. The other is trying to support first home buyers.

"And we tried to do it with one policy," she says.

"So we are working on how we can keep building at scale, and also keep working to support first home buyers.

"We've just got to make sure that we get the core elements of the policy right," Jacinda says.

"It hasn't met our expectations. We've been clear on that. But I am not going to give up on this. We have a housing crisis. We need more affordable homes."

-Stuff.co.nz