Suburbs boom: Auckland

Jenny Johnston and her State Ave house.

Like many newcomers to Auckland on a meagre wage, Jenny Johnston found the going tough when she moved from the Coromandel last year to work privately as a midwife.

Squeezed between industrial Penrose and Onehunga she found a former state house to rent in aptly named State Ave. The two-bedroom brick and tile house was solid on the outside and colourful on the inside. It had a fireplace, bath, large back yard, was partly modernised and was handy to the Southern Motorway.

"It just felt like me," said the 57-year-old, whose first house purchase was in the 1970s when she and her husband capitalised the family benefit, bought a section for $2000 and paid $10,000 to build a family home.

Thirty years on, and single, Jenny Johnston was given the opportunity this year to buy her renter. She managed by selling her share of a family bach at Mt Maunganui her mother bought 50 years ago, which nearly covered the $338,000 purchase price. Her landlord paid $240,000 two years earlier.

Jenny Johnston says the price she paid is "absolutely bizarre" but acknowledges it's the Auckland market. She has two daughters, one in Auckland and one in Wellington, who are unable to buy a house.

"I'm lucky and very fortunate."