Building a new home was the perfect solution for Nicole Alderton and Te Manawa Daniela, giving their growing family a space designed just for them.
Buying a new home has been a Kiwi rite of passage for generations. For young families, building a brand-new home can make a lot of sense.
Rotorua-based Nicole Alderton and her partner Te Manawa Daniela never expected their first home together would be a brand new one. The couple had a young child, were sick of renting and didn’t want to live in the whānau’s multigenerational home.
The pair had been renting but needed to move back into the main whānau home to help pay the mortgage there.
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“I just wanted my own space. I was 29, had a baby, and I just really wanted my own home,” Alderton said.
The couple looked at buying an existing home but couldn’t make the numbers work.
“We went to a few open homes, but they were just so expensive, and they weren’t quite right,” said Alderton. “There was always something in there that we needed to change.”
The turning point came when Alderton visited her brother, who had recently built a new house in the backyard of a property he owned.
“That made me think, ‘well, why can’t we do that?’,” she said. “We came home from my brother’s house, and we looked at that garden and thought, ‘that’s big enough for a house. We can totally do that here’.”
The couple had no idea where to start, and Alderton turned to the Rotorua Noticeboard Facebook group, where she met Classic Builders’ Stephen Hape and The Mortgage Centre’s Praveen Bhati, who between them helped turn what appeared to be an insurmountable dream into reality.
“The process was daunting at first, especially financially,” Alderton said. “If we hadn’t gone through the mortgage adviser, we probably wouldn’t have even been able to do this because we were just so lost.
“Stephen from Classic Builders was on [the Rotorua Noticeboard] too. When we went for a chat, he had everything ready to go. He had gone to [local surveyor Luke Nelson from Terrasurv] to see if we could subdivide [and] how much it would cost. He had the plans outlined of how big of a house we could fit in here. That’s why we went with him straight away because we were like, ‘oh man, we don’t know what we’re doing’. Honestly, I never thought I could do it and I probably wouldn’t have [without advice],” she said.
Nicole Alderton and Te Manawa Daniela with Classic Builders’ Stephen Hape. Photo / Supplied
With Bhati arranging the finance in the background, the pair signed a contract with Classic Builders in November 2023. The building work started in April 2024, and Alderton and Daniela moved into their new home in September, two weeks before the birth of their second child.
“I was relieved and excited. I was in the last stages of pregnancy and was trying to nest and all that stuff,” she said.
“It felt surreal, because it’s such a nice house [and] I’ve never lived in a house this nice. And knowing that this is our house. It’s so nice, and we own it.”
Looking back, Alderton has no doubt that building a new home was the right choice.
“I liked building a house because you can design it yourself. You always go into these houses that are pre-made, and you always find something you don’t like.”
Living close to family has been an added bonus. “My daughter will say ‘I don’t like that’, and she’ll run next door, and say ‘Nanny, I’m hungry’.”
Surprisingly, Alderton misses watching the build from the front house.
“I miss it because with Classic Builders, I had contact every step of the way,” she said. “I miss talking with them.”
Buying new has a number of advantages for first-home buyers, said Hape, building consultant at Classic Builders.
“From the start with a new build, you can get away with a lower deposit. With some banks, you can get a 10% deposit for a new build instead of 20% for existing homes,” he said.
“New homes are more comfortable to live in. They have [more] insulation and double glazing. They’re nice and warm, and they’re energy efficient.”
With a new build, said Hape, buyers can customise their home. “You can essentially design your own home. You have a choice of where things go in your new home. With a home that’s already built you can’t do that.”
First-home buyers can also access their KiwiSaver savings for new builds, as they can with existing homes, said Hape. Likewise, there are first home grants available for some buyers.
“You have to meet certain criteria with those.” That includes income and purchase price of the home.
Another advantage of buying a brand new home is that there is less maintenance in the early years when mortgage repayments are likely more difficult for first-home buyers who are still working their way up in the world.
The guarantees that come with brand new homes lessen the risk to buyers of hidden issues such as structural problems, old plumbing, and wiring, said Hape. That’s particularly useful for first home buyers who may not be experienced with repairs and maintenance. It gives them breathing space.
- Sponsored by Classic Builders
