Ryano

escapedtonz

Evening,
Good choice. Tauranga is AWESOME!
We love it here. Have lived in Bethlehem and now Te Puna (more rural). Been here just over 4 years. Kids are thriving. It really is a beautiful safe place with a great climate and beaches. Life here is sweeeeet.

Jobs wise I'd guess your partner shouldn't have any issues being a quantity surveyor. Employers here do like a person to have NZ work experience but it is not mandatory. An ex pat who I met on one of these forums (from my home town) came here as a QS after getting a job offer with Naylor Live in Wellington. It was even a promotion in to a managerial position, good salary, funded vehicle and all that jazz but he hated it. Found it difficult to adjust to the different markets, materials and ways of building and hated the software they used and the company structure. He ended up returning to the UK after 18 months. Another big outfit would be Fletchers who are NL's main competitor plus others.

Tauranga is huge on fuel. It has the largest harbour fuel terminal in the country. Don't know what you do though so can't really advise. Good option would be to research the oil industry here, the Marsden Point Refinery and transportation of it around the country by road, rail and ship. That research may give you company names you could approach or of course there's the usual fuel companies here like Gull, Z, Caltex, Mobil, BP, Waitomo, GAS etc who you could also approach.
This area isn't really huge on farming. There are lots of rural areas as far as the eye can see but a lot of it is orchard. I'd say you'd need to be looking in the Waikato region over the Kaimai's or further East towards Whakatane for proper farming.
Housing here is very expensive and rising all the time. In our 4 years we've seen it rocket. When we moved here from Wellington late 2014 you could get a really decent 4 bed detached in suburbia for $550k. We tried to buy a couple properties a year later the prices had risen $200k. It wasn't until one of our neighbors (we were renting a modest 3 bed detached in suburban Bethlehem) put their house on for offers over $867k did we think.....come on! What's going on here! We then decided it was too expensive where we were so moved further out. We bought a section in a well established rural area and had our own property built. Best thing we ever did. Didn't cost us any less but we got way more than we could have got in Bethlehem and a new house desiged by us.

Anything you wanna ask just fire away. Have assisted 5 UK migrant families with questions etc and their move to Tauranga.
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Ryano

MrsCakey

I can vouch for @escapedtonz

We also live in Tauranga and based on the areas you decide on then house prices can be expensive, rentals are super popular and cut-throat, it is often difficult to get a viewing, so start looking ASAP if that's the route you want to go down.

If you are both working then you'll need two cars as the buses/public transport here is not great.

Schooling wise, if you are sending the children to school then it's worth considering the intermediates (middle school) and then colleges for the 8 year old now as they are zoned (catchment areas).

Tauranga is a great choice to live with a young family, has all you could want in terms of the outdoor living, beaches and city lifestyle all combined.

Harris197801

Ryano

Harris197801

Ryano

escapedtonz

Awesome choice for a place to migrate with the family.
The whole of Tauranga and Mount Maunganui is near to where you will be working unless you don't wanna commute more than 10 mins ?
Obviously the closest place to live would be Mt. Maunganui but it is very older suburban and very expensive. Can be really busy traffic wise during the summer as it is a very popular kiwi holiday place with daily cruise ships visiting. We tend to avoid Mt. Maunganui from the week before Christmas for a good 4/5 weeks as traffic a nightmare and nowhere to park etc. Have been a couple times as mum visiting but you have to pick your times to get in and out avoiding the tourists. Nice place to live if you want suburbia and next to the beach though.
Otumoetai, Bureta, Cherrywood and Matua all pretty popular and fine. Again they are all older suburbia and you can have some stunning views of the Mount from there.
I would avoid Papamoa for a couple reasons:-
1. It is a bit rough round the edges. Too many poms in my opinion. Too much police presence for petty crap. There are some really nice parts and we did nearly buy there but after a few weeks research the little niggles put us off.
2. There's a lot of road works at the moment as NZTA are creating a new junction at the end of the TEL (Tauranga Eastern Link) that'll take at least another year I guess and Bayfair Shopping Centre and the surrounds being developed further. Traffic at the Bayfair roundabout area is a nightmare all day and everybody avoids it like the plague. If you lived in Pap and work next to the airport you have little option but to get stuck in it twice a day.

Brookfield is another a older suburbia very close to Otumoetai but fine for a temporary rental. Bethlehem is the nicest suburbia suburb by far but expensive and difficult to find a rental.
Majority of Welcome Bay is fine but you may have commuting problems from there......same if you lived in Ohauiti or Pyes Pa. I wouldn't recommend Greerton, Gate Pa, Parkvale or Merivale. Some parts of The Avenues are really nice which is right next to the city but traffic can be busy as you're right between the city and everyone trying to get in an out of the city.

Schools:-
Kids can start school here from their 5th birthday and by law have to be in full time education before they turn 6. This means kids start school at random times throughout the year and not just at the beginning of the school year or start of a new term. The first year in primary school from age 5 is Year 1.
Some schools just do the primary years (1-6), some do primary and intermediate (1-8), some just do secondary (9-13), some intermediate and secondary (7-13) and some do all through. Can't think of a school here that just does the two intermediate years (7&8) ?
There won't be a huge number of schools to choose from for your 11 year old and three of them (ACG, Aquinas and Bethlehem College) are fee paying so private or semi-private plus have strict entrance criteria which may rule them out ?
We have a near 8 year old who starts year 4 in a couple weeks and can stay till end of year 8 as it also does the intermediate years. Also means he'll still be at that school for a few years as our youngest starts in 2 years time.
Schooling is something to think about and can determine where you live. Not so much secondary schools as they are generally not zoned but primary schools very much are.

Of course there are a lot of law firms here but can't guarantee it'd be easy.to get a job here. My Mrs has struggled to get contracted regular hours and she's a nurse. Had to do casual for a couple years just to get in there and become part of the team even though she had 12 months NZ experience from when we lived in Wellington. Not easy to get work in Tauranga. Best advice for her would be cold call/visit every law firm with cover letter and cv regardless whether they have a vacancy or not. Kiwi employers really like that go get it yourself attitude.

good luck.
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Stuck in Auckland

Bear in mind the coming infrastructure costs through rates

escapedtonz

As it does everywhere else in the country. Tauranga is no different. TCC and WBOPDC charge the highest rates in the country anyways so I believe.
There isn't any major major construction going on in Tauranga, unlike Wellington and Auckland with new motorways, tunnels and serious CBD construction / re-construction in Christchurch etc.
Tauranga has a lot of plans to build stuff in the future - for example - a new shopping centre in the CBD, a couple of new major highways, a passenger train service to Auckland via Hamilton through a new Kaimai Tunnel (yeah right!), maybe a museum but it's all pie in the sky. It's all just blah blah blah at the moment and years from any decision. The government can't even decide about going ahead with reinforcement of our crap roading system and instead have pledged to spend six dollars on some plastic bollards to make the double yellows more obvious to idiots.

Stuck in Auckland

Change in waste recovery and cost impacts of Chinese sword program

Recent change in glass collection?

RFID tag supplier of new bins? Did your bin get recalled?

MrsCakey

You must all be super excited, not long to go, these final months will fly by!

The lovely Escapetonz has given lots of detailed advice on areas to live. I think the only way you'll know is to visit the areas you are interested in for yourself. We originally had one area in mind as it was near our friends, but in the end opted for a totally new suburb due to budget and the type of property we wanted.

I would suggest renting for a few months if you can bear it and then you'll get a good idea of what suits your family.

Feel free to drop me an email nearer to the move or once you are over here if you need any more insight