How We Bought Our Heritage Homestead in New Zealand (Being Self Employed!)

Follow our journey to buying a heritage homestead in New Zealand after finance hurdles, heartbreaks, and last-minute miracles.

We were denied finance, made an offer BEFORE getting financial approval, lost in a multi-offer, went to market only to get an escape clause executed that day, yet we somehow pulled off going unconditional in the final hours on our 6 bedroom, 1 hectare heritage homestead in New Zealand.

Back To Our First Home, Our Best Investment!

My husband and I were so lucky to have the home we did in St Johns Hill, a house we bought 11 years ago (almost to the day) after only a few months of us knowing each other.

We got such a bargain, at the time we couldn’t believe we were buying such a big place in our hometown, and were able to steadily chip away at the mortgage over time.

Over the years we slowly worked through renovations and managed to build decent equity mostly thanks to the market. We probably spent too much time and money fussing over the details, but at the time we truly believed this was our forever home.

As our family grew, five kids and counting including my stepdaughter, we began to run out of space in our four bedroom house on Parsons Street.

The house served us incredibly well, my husband, Jason, even had a dedicated music room, and his band Pull Down the Sun recorded their first album here. The house hosted weekly band practices, kids’ birthday parties, homeschool lessons and countless playdates.

Renovating Our 1920s Bungalow

Our first home had seen plenty of ‘landlord specials’, with years of paint over doorknobs and (lead) paint over hinges, most of which had long since chipped away.

Jason was the main DIYer, handling all the painting and sanding, I made the design choices and we outsourced cabinets and flooring. Our kitchen was completely gutted and redone. The bathroom was painted by my mum, and we poured a lot of love into the separate toilet and laundry.

We chose our favourite flooring of the whole house, a design that looked like original tile, in keeping with the 1920s style of the home. The laundry ended up being my favourite room in the house, big, practical and full of storage, every homemaker’s dream.

We also tackled the less glamorous upgrades, HRV, heat pumps, insulation, rewiring (thankfully my stepdad is an electrician), plumbing, and gas hot water.

We are so grateful to our family for the help we had along the way with renovations.

Buying this house early, for cheap, and holding for 11 years was our best investment in our future and ultimately helped us put down a decent deposit on our homestead.

When We Started Outgrowing Our Family Home

We did not anticipate moving so soon. We still had plenty of love left to give this house and would have happily stayed here for years, or forever really.

But with that said, I was always keeping an eye on homes online, sending beautiful old houses to my husband, friends, and family. It was more dreaming than any real expectation that we would make it happen.

Discovering Fernielea Homestead

In late 2025, after welcoming our fourth baby together, Fern, I saw Fernielea (how was that not meant to be??) pop up online. A 1800’s heritage listed homestead just 10 minutes out of Whanganui, in Fordell.

I remember thinking how unbelievably perfect it looked for our family, never truly imagining it could actually be ours.

It had everything both Jason and I had always wanted, and things we didn’t know we wanted. For me, it was the super old Victorian heritage homestead with a million rooms to fill with children, a dedicated homeschool room, and even a small space I could finally use for oil painting. I was used to painting at the dining table after the kids were in bed, then packing everything away again before using that same table for breakfast and the next day’s homeschool lessons.

For my husband, it was the hectare of land. Space for fruit trees, vegetable gardens and chickens. It was perfect for living off the land, and as a newly self-employed gardener and landscaper, he had the knowledge to make it work. Even a glasshouse and his favourite room, a dedicated library!

Making Our First Offer on Our Dream Homestead

We tried to talk with the bank about how to make it work, they wouldn’t look at us as we were so newly self employed. The five kids probably didn’t help either. We tried a broker who was super helpful but in the end the process just took far too long.

The agent called us to say someone was putting an offer on Fernielea, and asked if we wanted to as well.

I urgently filled a mortgage application online with our usual bank, The Co-Operative Bank, who are known to be harder to secure finance with if you are early into self employment.

By the grace of God, our application didn’t go to our local branch who previously denied us, and was sent to an advisor in the Hawkes Bay, who somehow got us approved, using documents from our accountant.

I’ve oversimplified really, it was a loooong journey of back and forth with the accountant, long calls to the bank and the broker.

Time ran out to secure the finance. I had this one day to make an offer official. Without officially confirming how much we could borrow, I took a chance.

We presented our offer alongside another offer.

We low-balled significantly, and within a few extra days our finance was approved. I would never recommend making an offer without a guaranteed offer of finance from the bank first, but if we didn’t do it then, it could have been over. I wrote a spiel about our family and how much we loved the property. We prayed it would be enough.

The Dream Was Over (Twice)

There was a sleepless night while we waited to hear who the vendors would choose. Finally the phone call – they need another night to decide. Another sleepless night and I got the call – they chose the other offer. A few tears later and I accepted our dream of owning a heritage home was over.

But the next day, I got another call. The negotiations fell through, and they wanted to negotiate with us! Which was a little scary as we had been now approved for a set amount, and that was near its limit.

We countered their counter offer, and then (after more sleepless nights) it was accepted! With the conditions we sold our house, and that they could accept a higher (or quicker) offer.

No time was to be wasted, Jason stayed up every night for days painting the hallway and doors with our friends and family, who also helped clean up the backyard, scrubbed floors and cleaned carpet. Everything they could think of that could add value within two days, before the photos were taken.

That weekend we had our first open home. We were so excited to get moving and go unconditional.

Then another devastating conversation with the agent – immediately after our first open home, after all the work (and money spent!) to get to that point, the vendors of Fernielea had again, accepted another offer. The tears came much harder this time.

The Escape Clause

It felt cruel to give us three working days to go unconditional – basically sell our house for cash and get the money, or they would go into contract with the other offer once again.

At this point we were thousands deep. $2000 on marketing our house, not to mention the supplies we spent last minute to get our house looking up to scratch. Hundreds on a LIM of Fernielea, lawyers, accounting documents for the bank. And it would all be for nothing if we didn’t get the cash in three days.

We actually did get an offer on our house after the first day, which also felt crushing. Why couldn’t they have waited to see if we would sell our house first? It wasn’t going to be on the market for months! We had priced well to get a quick sale.

But the offer was conditional on their own house sale, so it wouldn’t happen fast enough.

Three Days To Go Unconditional After Executing An Escape Clause

I kind of casually mentioned this to our consultant at the bank, Jenna, she told me on the first day she would ‘see what they could do’. But I needed to get her a valuation, which would be $1600, in a few days. Wondering whether I should risk spending the money on something that wouldn’t eventuate again, I called the first Google result for our area.

On day two, Jenna called with the best news, she said they could bridge us the finance, meaning we had the cash to now go unconditional! Provided I got the valuation in on time.

I called Diane of Wanganui Valuers, and she said she would stay up late and get it done for me. I was refreshing my emails until I fell asleep that night, and it hadn’t come.

With one day left, I was an anxious and stressed mess.

Bridging Finance In New Zealand

The bridging finance from our bank meant while we had the cash to buy Fernielea Homestead, we still had to sell our house.

We could accept the conditional offer, without having to have a cash or unconditional offer. In between times (weeks or months) we will essentially own two homes, paying for both. Which although financially daunting, actually gives us grace time to move at our own pace. Especially helpful with five children!

Going Unconditional After The Escape Clause Was Activated

Diane emailed me the report in the morning and I immediately forwarded it to Jenna at the bank. She said she sent it off and they’d see if it would work. It was now midday and I had hours left before our contract was void and Fernielea would go to someone else.

Jason and I accepted the offer on our Parsons St house to show the bank we had a good shot at selling our place.

Jenna called again and told me it was all go, we could go unconditional. I wasn’t sure of the process so was triple checking everything, to make sure this could truly happen.

There were so many ups and downs, so many times I thought we were getting the homestead, then times when there was no way it would work.

It was truly a collaboration of our families, friends, agents, lawyer, accountant, valuer and humble Co-Operative Bank. I was able to instruct our lawyer that we could indeed go unconditional, and our agent at Bayleys, Jess, rang me almost immediately, congratulating us.

It was so surreal that we managed to fulfil our conditions in the last hour. The contract was going ahead.

Fernielea was ours.

Follow along as we pack up, move in, and slowly make this heritage homestead our own.