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A man named Matt Gibb is wearing a brown blazer stands in front of a river in Central Otago countryside with blue skies overhead
Matt Gibb is in the country (Screengrab: TVNZ)

Pop CultureJanuary 31, 2025

Why can’t we stop watching Find My Country House NZ?

A man named Matt Gibb is wearing a brown blazer stands in front of a river in Central Otago countryside with blue skies overhead
Matt Gibb is in the country (Screengrab: TVNZ)

Nothing much happens in this property series, but it’s rating through the roof. What does that say about us?

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It’s a crisp, cool morning in scenic Central Otago, and house hunters Joni and Luke are standing in a stranger’s garden. The couple are looking for their new dream home – their fourth together – and have travelled the short distance from Queenstown to Lake Hayes to find the perfect property. It’s music to host Matt Gibb’s ears. “I’m on a hunt to find everyday Kiwis their perfect country house,” he announces in the introduction to the new series of Find My Country House New Zealand. Moments later, these “everyday Kiwis” reveal exactly how much money they have to spend on their new home.

Joni and Luke’s budget? Between four and six million dollars.

That’s right, an extremely relatable six million dollar budget. I rewound the episode to double check they weren’t joking, but Joni and Luke didn’t even put their pinky to their lips and say it in a Dr Evil voice. That’s how you know they’re serious.

Approx. (Screengrab: TVNZ)

It’s a bold move for Find My Country House NZ to kick off a new season with a pair of house hunters whose budget is bigger than most people’s dream Lotto win. We may be in the midst of both a cost of living crisis and a housing crisis, but not on Find My Country House NZ. This property series takes city dwellers and shows them homes for sale in the New Zealand countryside, offering them a tantalising glimpse of a more relaxed lifestyle filled with serenity, solitude and enough space to realise how far away they are from the nearest A&E department.

Last year the series – then known as Country House Hunters NZ – hit the headlines for showing one couple through a house they already owned. It didn’t let that delicious scandal keep it down, and returned to our screens in the new year with a brand new name to fill in the summer holiday TV void left by Seven Sharp.

And we can’t get enough of it. Find My Country House NZ has been a ratings success for TVNZ1, with January figures revealing it was consistently the second most watched broadcast show after 1News. It seems TV viewers have adored watching Joni and Luke mull over how to spend the several million bucks burning a hole in their pockets, or Lana and Warren search for a property in Oxford with room for their chickens, or wonder whether Ted and Roseanne will indeed find their forever home with a bathtub in Ashburton for $800,000.

Matt Gibb falls in love with the country (Screengrab: TVNZ)

What’s weird about this is that Find My Country House NZ is one of the least exciting shows on television. It’s a beautiful show filmed in some of our most scenic regions, but nothing happens. Nice people visit nice houses in nice towns, where they say nice things about the views and agree that they could definitely see themselves in that kitchen. Usually they don’t buy any of the houses, and the only drama comes when the show cuts to an ad break right before Gibb reveals the price of each property. Absolute cliffhanger as to whether that European brick home with mountain views in Arrowtown will be in my price range or not, but you know, fingers crossed.

Perhaps we’re watching Country House Hunters because it exists in a world of its own. Rather than reminding us of the grim pressures of daily life, Find Me A Country House NZ offers a brief escape. I spent a perfectly fine 22 minutes watching retired farmer Davy househunt for his sister-in-law Margo, an interior designer who lives in Dubai but wants to buy a home in Wānaka for $2 million. The first house Davy visited was an incredible 1970s wonder that included a bedroom covered in a wallpaper print of topless women. I would have moved there in an instant. (It later sold for $2.85 million, possibly because of all the boobs).

Or maybe it’s the relaxed charm of presenter Matt Gibb. He’s relentlessly upbeat and amiable, and never gets mad when the house hunters don’t buy any of the nice houses he’s spent an entire day showing them. Instead of taking it personally and throwing a garden gnome into a barbecue in disgust, Gibb simply tells the house hunters to keep in touch, and I think he actually means it. He has an impressive collection of winter coats, and I hope this year’s NZ TV Awards recognise the episode where he goes to a Canterbury property decorated with tiny fairy houses and then pretends to film a TV show for fairy house hunters.

Back in Lake Hayes, everyone’s having a lovely time. “I’ve thrown the budget out the window!” Gibb announces gleefully as he takes Luke and Joni to their first open home, a four bedroom home with three ensuites, priced at eight million dollars. Sadly, when the couple meet with Gibb again, they decide none of the multi-million dollar properties they’ve seen are right for them. It’s back to Queenstown for these everyday New Zealanders, and off to Alexandra, Selwyn, Matamata and Waihi Beach for Gibb. The search for the perfect country home continues.

Find My Country House NZ screens at 7pm on TVNZ1 and streams on TVNZ+.

Keep going!
in low light, a hand holds a rose. the rose is on fire!

Pop CultureJanuary 31, 2025

The Friday Poem: ‘Quiet Delicate Wednesday Afternoon’ by Joshua Toumu’a

in low light, a hand holds a rose. the rose is on fire!

A new poem by Joshua Toumu’a.

Quiet Delicate Wednesday Afternoon

after my Spotify Daylist

It’s a Wednesday morning and I’m growing roses on my HOA lawn instead of grass.
The ceiling is illuminated by hundreds of paper lanterns
and when I draw the curtains to my already open windows
they fly into the mid-winter air. Every morning I
harvest rose thorns to eat like cashews at my day job and
every evening I return to my house ablaze. The neighbours
hate me but can do nothing about it. I throw a house party
in the smouldering ruins every weekday and
every weekend I listen to the Vengaboys from 4 in the morning ‘til
2 in the morning while renovating the living room with jackhammers.
By Sunday evening the house will be as good as new, and now even more 1950s.
pastel pink lead paint, venetian glass bricks for bathroom walls, asbestos curtains.
Several murder attempts have been made by the neighbours
however I’ve wised up to their tricks. I no longer accept their
lemonade; I’m microdosing rat poison until I’m ready to attend
their picnics and drink the whole pitcher without flinching.
Last Monday I awoke to find both my waterbed and I at the bottom of the everglades.
They must have thought it to be an air mattress, as I did not travel nearly as far
as I could have. It will take a lot more than that to get rid of me
(I breathe water and air like a mudskipper). I return home on a chariot pulled
by several American alligators and crocodiles carrying a lit torch in a bedsheet toga.
Like a Viking burial, a shoot a flaming arrow out the carriage window
into my not-smouldering, not-ablaze 1950s home to ensure
I keep up with my weekly quota. I arrive at the office,
drenched in mud and rotting plant matter. My coworkers hate me, too.
They try to dox me, but my house has already been destroyed by
rampant fires and partygoers. They settle for regular violence instead,
engaging in fist fights in the break room every 15-20 minutes. I win
every time, so they pit me against a stronger and stronger manager
until I’ve fought my way through the entire Paper Plus. I ascend to
near-godhood (Regional Manager) and begin construction of the
Tower of Babel 2 with guidance from several linguists and the
guys who built the Reading Cinema in Wellington. It reaches
to the heavens, and atop it I find heaven and it is
earthquake-prone. I fall more storeys than I can count; the fall is hours long.
I cannot say I feel remorse on the way down. It’s quiet.

The Friday Poem is brought to you by Nevermore Bookshop, home of kooky, spooky romance novels and special edition book boxes. Visit Nevermore Bookshop today.

The Friday Poem is edited by Hera Lindsay Bird. Submissions are currently closed.

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