New Windsor: Casting the net

20 Waitati Place, New Windsor

Sold by: Jeremy Kennedy, Harveys, ph 846 3585 or 021 715 188 mob.

A well-kept three or four bedroom house, with plenty of yard for the kids to play in, in a friendly neighbourhood, all within budget. Sounds like a simple enough brief for a young family's house hunt. But after 10 weary months of searching, Auckland couple Scott and Lisa Collings were beginning to despair that they'd ever find their dream home.

"We spread our search further and further over Auckland," says Lisa. "We started at Mangere Bridge, we even looked at Pukekohe, then worked through Onehunga, Lynfield, Avondale and Blockhouse Bay. We got to the stage we would walk into a place, take one look and walk out."

Just as Lisa and Scott were despairing of trailing through open homes with their baby and toddler, lining up building inspectors and checking council plans, they saw this freshly renovated house.

"The owners were lovely and had done a really lovely job on this house, we wouldn't have to do a thing," she says. "We knew immediately this was us."

The couple had been to enough auctions in their search to know what to expect. They had a nerve-racking time with a crowd of 50 and seven or eight active bidders. But they could not face traipsing around open homes for another 10 months and braved their bid.

The New Windsor property is only minutes from Lisa's mother and sister, in a part of town she grew up in. Lisa is delighted at the ease of her commute as she re-starts business studies at Unitec, and Scott has figured out his trip to work at the airport.

With plenty of decks and doors opening to the garden, it will be a perfect home for their children to grow up in, and they look forward to becoming part of the close-knit neighbourhood.