Buyers thrilled with students’ house
Sometimes things are meant to happen.
Twenty years ago two Witt students, Dorothy and Chris Andrews, met at the Horticulture Centre that used to be part of the campus.
The centre is long gone, but in its place stands a two-bedroom house built by Taranaki Secondary School students dubbed the ‘‘Skills Squad’’ in a joint Taranaki Futures-Witt initiative.
Although there’s four week’s work to complete the house, it’s already been sold and Dorothy and Chris are the new owners.
About a year ago the couple sold their house in New Plymouth and bought a four-acre block of land at Tarata Rd and were looking for a house to move on to it. They’d paid a deposit on an old state house that was sitting at Taranaki Building Removers’ yard and went out a few weeks ago to do some measuring, Chris said.
‘‘But while we there we saw a one-bedroom house, brand new and finished.’’
That was the one-bedroom bach built last year at Stratford by the central and south Taranaki Skills Squad and remained unsold.
‘‘Dorothy and I both liked it so we went on-line and saw they were building a two-bedroom house, so we got hold of Libby Baird, the McDonalds real estate agent marketing the property, and bought it.
‘‘It was unbelievable – it was exactly what we wanted.’’
Dorothy was just as delighted. ‘‘There’s absolutely nothing I would have changed. It really was as if it was meant to be,’’ she said.
Chris says the house fits the undulating section perfectly. ’’Even the roof was exactly the colour we wanted it to be.’’
They were happy with the $160,000 sale price.
’’Especially because we know the proceeds are going to charity,’’ said Dorothy.
Taranaki Futures is a registered Charitable Trust and all the proceeds from the sale will be reinvested in a variety of projects they run.
Taranaki Futures chairman Graham Wells was pleased with the outcome.
‘‘Build a Bach is just one of the programmes we run these days, but it’s more than taking students from a classroom and introducing them to building, it’s about making them realise there are many ways of being successful in life.’’