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For sale - village and 40 inhabitants

STRESSED-OUT city executives looking to get away from it all have the chance to buy their own rural village in New Zealand, complete with a pub and population of 40.

Otira, a hamlet on the rainy west coast of New Zealand’s South Island, is on the market for US$715,000.

Current owners Bill and Christine Hennah bought the rundown village in 1998 after passing through and “feeling sorry for it,” Christchurch-based newspaper The Press has reported.

They paid US$56,000 for the hotel or pub, school, railway station, town hall and 18 houses making up the village near the Arthur’s Pass National Park that dates back to 1923.

The village developed when the Otira railway tunnel was opened, and during its heyday was home to about 600 workers and their families.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .