A Canterbury trust aims to build and sell 10 houses at less than half the average national price in a bid to bring new skills to a quake-hit town.
The Hurunui Community Development Trust is building a kit-set four bedroom home in Waiau, north of Christchurch, which it is selling for $350,000.
Trust spokesperson Rebekah Kelly said the town needed skilled people to aid its recovery from the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake.
"Waiau experienced a heck of a shake in an earthquake about four years ago. As part of the recovery from that we got a chance to sit down and make some decisions and set some goals for ourselves around community and how we wanted that to look," Kelly said.
"One of the goals that we set was to ... look at housing in Waiau and how we could encourage some new families to come here."
The trust was looking for the right family to apply to buy the house, hopefully bringing skills in agriculture, rural services, or a new business to the town, she said.
"We're keen to talk to anybody who is interested in this opportunity of owning a house, especially families, people who might not be able to afford houses in other ways."
Using a shared-equity scheme, support from local tradespeople and a loan from the owner of a nearby racecar manufacturing business made the low price possible, she said.
The trust's goal was to eventually build 10 similar houses to be sold at about the same price.
Moving to Waiau might be a big change for some people but the community would make the shift easy, Kelly said.
"We are all really friendly and new faces get known really quickly.
"Waiau is a community where everybody is looking after each other ... we still hold those old school values, where it takes a community to raise a child."
RNZ
