You can buy a house for under $50,000

Quarter-acre dream still alive and well - out in the backblocks

MIKE HEYDON/Dominion Post

KIWI DRIVE: Tararua couple Joanne Shanks and Clinton Hall, with son Caleis, have bought a four-bedroom home freehold for $50,000 and say the quarter-acre dream is still alive - you just have to live in the country.

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A Tararua couple who have bought a four-bedroom home freehold for $50,000 say the quarter-acre dream is still alive - you just have to live in the country.

Joanne Shanks and Clinton Hall, who have a three-year-old son, Caleis, spent nearly four years living in a motorhome so they could save to buy their first property without a mortgage.

The couple achieved their dream two weeks ago, moving into a 1950s "doer-upper" on a quarter-acre section in Pongaroa, southeast of Dannevirke.

The $50,000 price included a $5000 loan from family members.

"It's great. It feels like we've won the lottery," Ms Shanks said.

Structurally the place was in good order, though it had holes in the walls and needed a huge clear-out.

 She believed many Kiwis were paying too much to live in cities, saying rural life offered mortgage relief.

The Dominion Post featured a Wellington couple last week who, like many new home owners, face mortgage repayments of about $800 a week for the next 25 years, after buying a $420,000 home.

Ms Shanks said first-time buyers should consider less expensive rural towns, many of which she believed still had good employment opportunities.

"You don't have to be as extreme as us, but there's still a lot of New Zealand that is reasonably priced."

Without a mortgage the family could live on $20,000 a year, she predicted.

The couple had already planted a vegetable garden and would earn most of their income from a mobile children's entertainment business they had set up.

They chose to save for a freehold lifestyle after returning from France four years ago and calculating the cost of buying.

"It changed our thinking quite radically. Country life is also what you want to be able to give a child ... It's just having a bit more freedom than you would in the city."

They scoured real estate websites for a year before landing their Pongaroa home.

Close to east coast beaches and among rolling hills, Pongaroa was a great location, she said.

But land agent Wayne McDonagh, who sold the property, said such bargains were not commonplace. "They pretty much fluked it."

The house had attracted more than 50 inquiries and four offers. It had a rateable value of $30,000 and was advertised for $46,000, he said.

Pongaroa's isolation and size - it had only about 20 properties - contributed to its lower land value.

Mr McDonagh believed the same home would sell for about $120,000 in Dannevirke and $180,000 in Palmerston North.

But Ms Shanks, despite growing up in Auckland and living in London, Paris and Tokyo, has no qualms about country life.

"When you think about New Zealand when you're overseas ... you think about the country."

- © Fairfax NZ News