Client Journey: Keri’s Home

Kerikeri, Far North — Toroa 2 Bedroom, 10x3

Keri signed her contract eleven days after she first emailed us. Her home arrived eighteen months later, and almost none of that wait was ours.

Who Keri is

Keri lives in Kerikeri. She came to us through the website in September 2024, took a site visit the following Monday, and signed eleven days after her first email. She was not a slow decider. She already knew what she wanted and sent us the list before the ink was dry: a bifold window between the kitchen and the deck, a barn door to the bathroom, tongue-and-groove lining, open shelves instead of cupboards, big windows throughout for light and views, a heat pump rather than a fireplace, and a glass door to the outside with a cat flap in it.

What she did not have was the money. It was still in her old house.

What she decided

She went ahead anyway. Before she signed, she brought Arthur — her friend Mindy's husband — to the site visit, because the home was going on their land at and she wanted the person who knew that ground standing on it with us. Site first, then contract, then sell.

It is the reverse of what most people do, and it is the reason her home had somewhere to land the day it was ready.

The wait, and then the build

Her house did not sell.

An offer came in that December and fell over. By March she had dropped the asking price. In April there were two interested parties and no offers: "Sob." She kept writing to us anyway, every few weeks, for over a year.

"Still no sale but I'm hanging in. Still excited about my Ruru house!"

In August 2025 she signed. The buyer's finance came through in October, and settlement landed on 14 November. We ordered her trailer the day after it went unconditional.

Then it moved quickly. Framing elevations in late November, weekly progress photos from the first week of December, and a build that ran through the Northland summer. Her daughter Amy shaped it alongside her — the bathroom configuration is Amy's, and so is the warmer carpet Keri now does yoga on. Along the way Keri made two calls we have since recommended to other clients: leave the stairs open with no balustrade, and put an extra window in above the ranch slider.

In February the site work went in: the pad, the power pole, trenching for power, plumbing, sewerage and internet. She asked us to source the piles and find someone who had levelled a home before. We did. Nick had it level in a morning.

Her home was delivered on 16 March 2026. Her email that afternoon was two lines long.

"I nearly cried! It's gorgeous!"

Where it is at

A month in, Keri wrote to tell us she was a hundred percent happy and hardly wanted to leave the house. The breakfast bar is her office and her studio. The sun comes in across the downstairs floor in the mornings. A cyclone came through and, in her words, there wasn't a wobble.

She was clear-eyed about the money too. This was not the cheapest way to get a tiny home, and she said so — and then said it had been worth every cent for the quality, the beauty and the solidness of it.

Locally it has picked up a name. Everyone calls it Keri's House.

What this taught Ruru

The client's timeline is the real timeline. Keri waited thirteen months for a house sale she could not control, and the only thing we could usefully do in that period was hold her slot, answer her emails and never once make her feel like a problem. The build took four months. The relationship took eighteen.

If we had pushed her to commit money she did not have, or quietly given her slot away, there would be no Keri's House.

Thinking about a Ruru home before your own place has sold? Talk to us early. We would rather hold a slot for you than watch you rush a sale.