PACKED to the RAFTERS

As house prices soar, more and more extended families are discovering the benefits of living together.

- SARAH LANG

When Joelle Peters left her Dunedin home aged 19, she never imagined living with her parents again. “I thought, ‘Yes, I’ve left home forever!’”

Now, the 31-year-old lecturer at Otago Polytechnic’s engineering department lives with husband Ben, their children Eli, six, and Oriana, three, her parents and her aunt in “a big 19th-century home”.

When she had children, Peters wished she had family support under the same roof. But that wasn’t the primary driver for the housing arrangement.

“It was ridiculously impossible to get into the Dunedin housing market.” (The median price there is currently around $645,000.)

“Despite Ben and I getting quite good full-time salaries, we couldn’t get a mortgage without a really significant chunk of savings – which we couldn’t get because most of our money went on rent. Catch-22, pretty much.”

So in July 2019, the couple pooled their savings with those of her parents, who sold their house, and her aunt to buy the large property and live under the same roof.

“My husband, kids and I live on the top level, with three bedrooms, a small lounge and small bathroom.”

Downstairs, there’s communal living space on one side. “Mum, Dad and my aunt live on the other side, which has two bedrooms, Mum’s and Dad’s offices, and a bathroom.”

Everyone shares the kitchen and laundry. There’s a cooking roster, and a Google Doc to split house-related expenses.

Before they bought the land, it had been subdivided to create two new sections, which they’ll build on. “One house,” says Peters, “will be for my sister, her husband and kids, and the other for my aunt.”