mortgage-free

 

PHOTO: ROBYN EDIE/STUFF Israel and Lisa Calder with their sons, Ronin, left, 3, and Titus-Asher, 5, at their first home which they bought with no mortgage. The house bus in the driveway was home for the seven-member family before they bought the house in Bluff in January.

A drastic measure to avoid being drawn into a housing crisis has paid off for a Southland family of seven.

The Calders, of Bluff, achieved a major goal buying their family home but it required stringent saving and living in house buses for four years.

In 2017, after living in a house bus for several years, Lisa and Israel Calder told Stuff: “There’s talk of a housing crisis in New Zealand but for a lot of people, it’s invisible.”

At the time, the family of seven were living in a bus parked at New Life Church in Bluff, but it was unsafe for the youngest children being parked five metres from the main highway.

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