Landa Mendonca has lost count of how many properties she has looked at in the search for a home for her family.

Landa, her husband and their three children arrived in Wānaka from Brazil eight months ago, after securing jobs here. 

They moved in with Landa’s sister Nanda, expecting it may take one or two months to find a house.

But that timeframe has stretched out and the household of eight is feeling the strain.

Landa’s husband, a tiler, has to sleep on the floor of the small bedroom the family shares, while his wife and two-year-old son Noah share the bottom bunk, their 11-year-old son has the top bunk, and their 12-year-old daughter the single bed.

Landa said she has looked at houses in Wānaka, Luggate, Lake Hāwea, Albert Town, and Cardrona, and is often told: “Sorry, not this time. Maybe next time.”

“From the beginning she was excited to get a nice house, but now she’d take a bedsit,” Nanda said.

“She knew it was hard, but not like that.”

Nanda moved to Wānaka four years ago and said it was “not anything like” as difficult to find a home then.

“Landa has a nice job, her husband has a nice job. They earn a good salary,” Nanda said.

The crowded household is struggling to manage “appropriate sleep, bed times for the kids, and family time”, she said.

Home & Co agent Colleen Topping told the Wānaka App eight months was “a very long time to look for a house”.

“There is such a massive shortage of houses at the moment, and a lot of the houses are not long term houses [i.e. six months or less].

Colleen said a range of factors are causing the shortage of rental properties, including government policy which disincentives people buying rental properties as an investment.

“Real estate agents are not really selling to investors. I can't remember the last time we took on a property owned by a pure investor,” she said.

“We seem to take over houses that an owner intends to move into eventually.”

The influx of people into the area is another factor. “We get calls every day from people saying ‘I’ve just landed a job here, I’m moving here with my whole family’.

“It’s a big problem.”

Colleen said she has a few rental properties on the books now, with up to 16 applications on each (each application might represent several people).

Her advice to Landa’s family is: “Keep at it, keep applying.”

The family has given themselves until March before they will give up on finding a home in Wānaka. If they don’t find one, they may have to move to Dunedin. 

PHOTO: Wānaka App