A small New Zealand town is offering property for £124,000 because it has too many houses and not enough people

Kaitangata, New Zealand

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Buying property can be ridiculously expensive.

But if you're willing to move to a small town in New Zealand, you could buy your own house and land for NZ$230,000 (about £124,000).

The countryside town of Kaitangata in the Clutha district on the country's South Island is offering low-cost packages of property and land as part of an incentive to attract more residents.

With a population of just 800, the town has many empty houses and jobs and needs people to fill them, according to The Guardian.

There are over 1,000 jobs that need to be filled across the district, Bryan Cadogan, the mayor of Clutha, told The Guardian. Yet, nearly everyone in the community is employed.

"We have got youth unemployment down to two," Cadogan told the news outlet. "Not 2% – just two unemployed young people."

"I despair over the way many Kiwi families are forced to live these days," he added. "So many of the things Kiwis value, such as owning your own home and providing for your family, have become an impossible dream. For a lot of people in New Zealand life is just an endless slog. And that really saddens me."

Local employers — which include a dairy plant — are also on board with the scheme.

"The housing crisis in New Zealand has made the Kiwi dream unattainable for many people, but in Kaitangata the Kiwi dream is still a reality," Kaitangata-based dairy farmer Evan Dick told The Guardian. "We have jobs, we have houses, but we don’t have people. We want to make this town vibrant again, we are waiting with open arms."

It is hoped that the incentive will persuade more New Zealanders paying expensive rent in the cities to move into the town, which is described in the package prospectus as having "great views," surrounded by sheep and dairy farmland.

So far, the town has received overwhelming interest, with a high volume of emails, phone calls, and Facebook messages, according to the Clutha District Council website.

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