WHERE'S BEST TO LIVE IN NZ AND WHAT DO WE NEED TO KNOW: PART4!!!

[AngryBeaver]

Arrgh,had to start a new thread!

Yes,you can get more land in Tauranga. Well,somewhere like Omokoroa or somewhere.Wouldn't want to live much closer than that. And I woulkdn't want to live at he Mount. Lovely as it is. Too touristy,imo.
We would like enough land for a pool (eventually) maybe a sleepout and still enough for a veggie patch and garden for kids. Don't neeed acres +. Wouldn't say no though,if we could afford it! Be nice to have a few sheep or something/

I think Mum would have to fly to Tauranga. So that would be
Manchester-London,London-Singapore, Singapore-Aukland,Aukland- Tauranga
Bad.

justa howws the back? Hope physio was a help,we may have driven past you!
Your house sounds great.
My mums friend lives in Silverdale.She has about an acre with some sheep etc
Wasn't overly impressed at but didn't give it a proper look I suppose,just stopped to buy flowers for Mums friend! Always worth another look

Tauranga. we have friends there and basically, just quite fancy it!

We are taking a 6 month sabattical when we get there, so have time to decide if it is for us (Tauranga, not NZ) and move accordingly.

of course, as you can tell, we havent really nailed down the fine details yet

ooh, we are wanting to move to Tauranga frick
Well, has anyone else been dying this week with the proper flu??! We have had it,it was deeply unpleasant and has lasted a good while. Still suffering actually, but can just about lift my limp, weakened wrist to tap pathetically on the keybpard

Oh AB that doesn't sound nice at all poor you.

I don't know how I haven't got sick with all the bugs DD2 has had, but thankfully no flu in this house.

Speaking of houses, keep your fingers crossed for us - we think we've found a new place. It's lovely, even has a nice deck. But no view of the sea ~sob~ we'll miss our view. We should know tomorrow evening if we have it.

fingers crossed vviola!
We rang the estate agent today and asked her to ring the owner and ask her if she would reconsider kicking us out. Bet she'll say no the bitch but worth a shot. If we can stay here 'til dh gets a new job in Tauranga/Auckland, that would be sooo much easier on us

Maybe we will be neighbors angrybeaver :-) can anyone shed some light on school going ages for me? Have been googling, but there seems to be more than one 'start' age? Sorry to hear of those with flu, hope you all feel better soon

They start at 5. In the middle of a term, whenever . In DD1's school it's the first Monday after their 5th birthday.

I quite like it, her school has a foundation class to get the new entrants up to speed with everything. And then a group 'move up' the year 1 together when they are ready,

Thanks vvviola, your DDs school sounds sensible. Have just spent a happy half hour perusing trademe looking for rentals by the beach :-)

That would be nice frick
We have 1st time buyers having a 2nd look around our UK home..oh please oh please!buy the fucker
If we could sell that, ad the owner lets us stay here for a while...then all we need is a new job and we can move and buy...then things may finally fall into place for us. fingers crossed

Fingers crossed AB. Has your OH tried approaching any likely employers? People here seem more likely to 'make' a job for people.

I'm finally recovering from my cold. Next year I may go into hibernation or solitary confinement.

We have a house!!

DH signs the contracts tomorrow & we move in about a month.

It has bedrooms upstairs from the lounge which I am inordinately pleased about at it means I won't have to tiptoe around after the girls are in bed.

And we have a garden and a deck

There will be massive decluttering & sorting happening here over the next few weeks (you'd swear we hadn't done all that when we moved last...)

Fingers crossed for you AB

Great news about the house vvv

I seem to be getting rid of bags of stuff from the house here in the UK every day and it still feels like we have too much. Got just over 3 weeks until we fly out, not sure if I'm going to get it all done in time.

hooray vviola, sounds great.
ok,they made and offer....40 k below asking price! cheeky feckers. I got excited for a minute

Can you go back to them with another offer and see if you can get them to go higher? . Are houses in that area generally going for below/about/above asking price?

Oh and great news on the house Vvviola.

I just looked at moving works and I was amazed to see the prices of the houses in the area. It's like they were 10 years ago.
It is a "posh" village, very small semi-rural, very quiet great schools. It's shocking.
We have already put it on the market for 20k less than we paid for it 4.5 years ago!
Yes, told the agent we couldn't possibly sell for that price.
They are at work so we probably won't hear back until tomorrow.
She reckons they will go up, but not by enough

Ok, this is one of those how long is a piece of string questions, but is 550 a week for rent a decent amount or not? We are doing budgets........ Mostly, I want to be warm that's about it on my list of demands!

Tbh I have no idea what Tauranga rents are like. In Auckland rents where I am are about 450-500 for a 3 bed but closer to the city/ fancier areas would be higher. If you look on Trade Me, is there quite a lot available for 550 or under? Seems like quite a large amount for a non-big-city place.

Oh and re being warm, put "heat pump" in the search box when on the rentals page and see what properties come up

Thanks whatshesaid, looks like heat pumps are few and far between in rentals..... Oh well, never mind will just buy loads of electric blankets and those weird Slanket things

Houses with lots of north facing windows are good too, more sun. Hard to tell on the Internet though!

Hi ladies,

Lurking with interest and keeping up with you all (from afar). We have been busy moving from London (sold flat and ready to move to NZ in Jan).

Sorry to be rude but quick question for you all. We will be ready to upgrade our carseats for two DDs by the time we leave in Jan. We could buy here and ship in November (and use our current ones until we leave) or should we wait until we get there and buy? What do you think? Could probably get a better price here in UK but not sure all UK seats fit NZ cars or would it just be easier to buy when we get there. Happy to rent from plunket until we find some.
DD1 will be four and will be in a booster seat, DD2 just over 1 year and will I guess be going into forward facing seat.

Any advice much appreciated!

Car seats are really expensive here. Check out kiwibaby.co.nz for prices. A lot of them here use isofix- I'm not sure if this exists in the UK?

We paid $500 for DD's as I wanted to rear face her as long as possible. I know John Lewis will ship them so that is an alternative which can work out cheaper. If your order is under a certain amount you don't pay duty/GST etc so it may be better to order them individually.

Where are you headed LWC?

We went out for dinner last night and I've got food poisoning today. I seem to get it every few months here. Does anyone else have the same problem?

Can I ask what car seat you have TheLittlest?

I need new ones for both 3 1/2 year old and 2yr old and was looking at the Radian XRT. Not sure if it will go in the car we are using though. Think I'll need it to be able to be fitted with belt only.

Ours is the older version of this one:

kiwibaby.co.nz/car-seats-boosters/convertible-car-seats-birth-upto-36kg/Evenflo-Symphony-65-E3-Milo.html

It rear faces till 18kg. DD is only 13 ATM!

The isofix is brilliant on it. I reckon it takes the user error out and it makes it easy to move between cars.

Those of you who are working etc - what do you do about the holidays? Typically the university holidays and school holidays don't match up, so I have to sort something out for DD1. I've looked at a few holiday programmes but even though they say suitable for 5 year olds some of the activities seem a bit advanced...