Hawke’s Bay family of five wins a year of mortgage paid for

Central Hawke's Bay couple Jake and Chloe Stevens were the lucky winners of the OneRoof-Hits contest, getting $27,000 to help pay off their mortgage for a year. Photo / OneRoof

A Central Hawke’s Bay couple will be making a long-awaited move to the city and seeing more of their family after winning a year with no mortgage.

Chloe and Jake Stevens won $27,000 in The Hits’ Live Free contest sponsored by OneRoof, which offered to pay a year’s worth of rent or mortgage to the winner and drew 229,300 calls from The Hits listeners over five weeks.

“Jake works six days a week, so it means he can go down to five, and we can finally make our move to Napier,” Chloe told OneRoof earlier.

The couple, along with their three children Isabella, 15, Hunter, 14, and Madelaine, 8, moved to a Waipukurau villa three years ago after Jake left dairy farming and began a building apprenticeship, and Chloe retrained in business administration.

“We started again, it was a big pay cut. We planned to be here one year because Isabella is boarding at Napier Girls’, Maddy and I commute an hour into Napier and Hunter is at school in Hastings. So three years later, it’s time,” Chloe said earlier.

Now with an extra $520 per week, the first bill the couple plans to pay is their villa renovation loan, before selling it to move to Napier.

They were one of five finalists who won the opportunity to go to NZME headquarters in Auckland on Friday and each try a key for the chance to unlock the prize, hosted by The Hits drive hosts Laura McGoldrick and Brad Watson, with Breakfast hosts Jono and Ben.

After Chloe picked the green key for luck and won, the contestants all went out to spend the night celebrating together.

“It felt like we’d known them like old friends, but we’d only just met,” Chloe said.