Client Journey: Jean’s Westcoast Adventure

Hector, West Coast — The Little Ruru

Jean ordered her home before she had anywhere to put it. Most people do it the other way round, and most people wait longer because of it.

Who Jean is

Jean had talked to us about tiny homes on and off for years before anything happened. What changed was retirement. She looked at her house, added up what it was costing her to keep and to maintain, and decided she was done with it. She sold.

When she first wrote to us properly, in February 2026, she had been on the West Coast for exactly one week. She was looking for bush, a beach nearby, and a part of the country where land costs a fraction of what it does in the cities.

What she decided

She decided not to wait.

A Ruru build takes about three months from start to handover. Buying land takes about the same. The two do not need to wait for each other, and if you run them one after the other you have simply added three months to your own life for no reason.

So Jean signed with us in March 2026, before her offer on a section had been accepted. We agreed up front that if the home was finished before the site was ready, it could sit in our yard at a modest monthly storage cost until she was ready for it. That single agreement is what made the parallel approach safe for her.

Finding the land herself

Jean did not wait for an agent to bring her something. She put an ad on the local community page asking whether anyone had a section for sale, and a man answered — he owned the block next door to his own house.

It was overgrown, with a few old sheds on it that needed to come out. But it was slightly elevated and had never flooded, it had lovely bush around it, a bush reserve directly behind, and DOC land behind that. In her words, no chance of ever being built out. Water was already connected to the section and power was at the boundary. It would need a septic tank.

She then did two things we wish more people did. She rang the council herself and worked out exactly what she was dealing with before she committed. And she went and sat down with Mars, who already lives in a Ruru on the Coast, to hear what the journey is really like from someone who has done it.

Her offer was accepted on 6 April, three weeks into her build.

"My Little Ruru will have a lovely nesting spot 😊😊😊"

The build and the land, side by side

While our team framed and finished her Little Ruru in Richmond, Jean got her site ready on the Coast. The two jobs ran in parallel, and both of them took roughly as long as we said they would.

Hers was not a tidy run. The settlement was three months. The section had to be cleared. The septic design had to be soil-tested, drawn up and lodged with council. Buller Power moved her connection point while they replaced lines underground, which meant her home would likely arrive before the power did.

She solved it by building a local team around herself: a builder who had shifted tiny homes before and could do the levelling, a drainage contractor for the septic, and an electrician for the connection.

"I've got the right team now 🙂"

Her home was finished in June. It went to Hector in August.

Where it is at

Jean is in. She is debt free, on her own bush section, minutes from the beach, with the capital that was locked up in her old house now available to her instead of tied to a roof.

The mains power is still not connected. She is unbothered.

"It's great to be in it and making it my own. Not sure when power will happen but will manage fine till then. But I have a loo! A hot shower, cooking facilities — all the important things haha! Power banks are wonderful things 🙂🙂🙂"

What this taught Ruru

The people who move into a tiny home fastest are not the ones with the most money or the easiest sites. They are the ones who order the build and hunt for the land at the same time, instead of finishing one before starting the other.

Jean also proved something we now repeat often: the best land is frequently not on the market. A section next door to somebody's house, advertised nowhere, found by asking a community page whether anyone had one. No agent, no listing, no competition.

And the last thing — you do not have to have everything finished to move in. A loo, a hot shower and somewhere to cook will do. The rest arrives in its own time.

Thinking about a Ruru but haven't found land yet? That is not a reason to wait. Talk to us about running both at once.