bearskin

Yikes.

Robbo25

I wasn't being tongue in cheek about countering the other, there is a lot of stretching of truth going on in these parts lately (both UK and NZ based) some of which is just pure funny to me.

However, I know that Otahuhu is heavily industrial etc, but from what little I do know there is a reason why the house in Dartford is that price, which Stormer later points to. It wasn't even the cheapest I could find. We must stop saying that every house in the UK is great without actually knowing.

I lived back in the UK for 7 months in a terraced house, the bathroom like many in the street appeared to be a very poorly built extension on the back, and yes it did have radiators and also double glazed windows however the cold in there in winter was another level again as well as the mould on the ceiling etc.

Of course though I am not for one minute saying there isn't an issue with house prices in Auckland (we know there is like parts of the UK), or with kiwi house build quality, but more that we need to be honest.

Again, I am interested as to why people decide not to move away from Auckland after emigrating here, but will move away from their home area when going back to the UK. The only thing stopping me moving away from Auckland are two teenage kids doing high school exams and me being a single parent, once the kids are finished all bets are off

davros1984

OK - that is a classic example. It has an asking price of $550K. Realistically if it goes to auction it will sell for anything from 800K to 1MIL NZD. Usually to prevent auction you need to make a good offer well in excess of the asking price. I found plenty of properties that had an asking price/rv/cv etc etc all for around 400-450K, but the cheapest one of those sold for was $616K - and that was a small 3-bed unit in Beach Haven.
Given the choice of paying roughly a similar amount and living 30 minutes from central London and earning super cash or moving to the other side of the world and living in Otahuhu..... but earning considerably less. Its a tough one, if Otahuhu wasn't so industrial then maybe. I spent plenty of time doing contract work for Fletcher/Pacific Steel who are based in that area.

You'd think so, having seen many Kiwi classic villa's, damp, draughty, cold, bottomless put of money required to maintain and revamp.

Polly 3

Living in Sydney, in a 3 bed, two bath, double garage, on small block miles from anywhere. Paid 340,000 8 years ago, going on the market soon for 1.2m. It is double brick, however you can see daylight between the window frames and brick wall, almost no double glazing here. Homes, well whole suburbs really, go up in weeks, the construction looks great, but truly, hope we never have a small earthquake, no reinforcing at all. Air con costs us about 3,000 per year on top of the power bill. Between rates and water rates paying almost 6,000pa in local taxes. These problems happen everywhere I guess.

bearskin

It's something I am interested in too.

It would be great to have some of the members of these forums - who have tried living in Auckland and found it hasn't worked out - for them to say what their reasons are/were for not trying to live somewhere else in NZ, before moving back to the UK and living somewhere that is
a) not where they were living before they moved to NZ
b) not the equivalent of Auckland (i.e. a small town somewhere in the UK)

I know one member did give a reply to my asking this earlier, but it would be great to have more? And, no I'm not trying to be a critic, I am genuinely interested in the motives of this... so please try not to be overly defensive in your replies?

Robbo25

No auction that was the asking price, and it has had some work done to it, whether to an individual's liking or not is a different question. In the super hot auction period then I agree there was some bizarre behaviour, I walked away from a few in Beach Haven at auction, however in hindsight I should have not been so stubborn around CV as they looked a steal a while later

As I said previously many if not most properties at auction are now going unsold, what happens after I'm not sure but I know of people negotiating a sale post auction for much less than they expected before the auction.

The reality is that I would want to live in Dartford about as much as I would want to live in Otahuhu, but if people are going to pick out cheap and cheerful then I will do likewise. The challenge was around getting somewhere within that price bracket and within a 30min'ish travel time, the merits of each can be challenged but they both fulfill that criteria.

By the way, the days of earning "super cash" were over quite some time ago in most parts of the UK, but again that depends on perspective.

Robbo25

Totally agree.

garethwm

I shake my head at these never ending exagerations. A few seconds on google tells me that in 2012, Auckland houses sold for, on average, 1% below the listed price, not 50% above, as youre trying to suggest. And I think that was a bouyant year.

garethwm

Further to that, I see that nationally 76.2% of houses sold at below the asking price, so buyers negotiation skills can be handy. Funnily enough, Christchurch and Wellington had a higher percentage than Auckland selling above the asking price. Are you likely to sell for above your asking price? - QV.co.nz

lisamct

I'm interested in what you mean by asking price as for the last few years only a tiny minority of houses in Auckland had an actual asking price, most (I believe until last year the percentage was almost 80%) sold at auction. The only houses with asking prices tended to be new builds or known leaky apartments.

If you mean CV's then in my experience of buying a house last Sept and attending 14 (that I can remember) auctions prior to that, then davros1984 isn't far off accurate, not one went for anything near the CV, most at least 25% over that.

Robbo25

The auction bubble as far as I saw it started mid-2012 and I agree that it certainly felt that the prices were bananas in relation to CV at auctions I went to early last year. However as I said earlier, a lot of this year the auctions have been very flat with a lot of properties not selling, I say this from getting a regular report from Barfoot and Thompson giving the auction outcomes for Auckland's North Shore and Hibiscus Coast.

garethwm

I was just going by that webpage. I presume they mean of those properties that were conventional sales, where an asking price is listed. Not CV. If you look on trademe, there are a reasonable percentage of properties in Auckland with a listed asking price. But I see some outfits like Barfoot and Thompsons are almost all auction these days. Yes, CVs are not keeping up with the play by a long chalk, it seems.

Bo-Jangles

Yikes? Compared to what exactly?

If you look a bit further the crime in that area is considerably lower by at least half of most other places in the London metropolitan areas

Compare Northumberland Heath, Metropolitan Police Service - Police.uk

It would be much like comparing the North Shore of Auckland to Otahuhu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Bexley

Robbo25

I rest my case for staying the heck away from London in that case

And love the banter

Spacecake799

Ok Im going to stick my neck out here and give you our reasons for leaving after trying Auckland. I don't want comments about how wrong we were etc. Were back in the UK for now and very happy with our decision.
We moved to NZ in 2006 on a whim, thought it would be an adventure, sold everything and entered as tourists. OH got a job offer in Auckland within two weeks (had to stick to big cities as in IT). Got residency and continued with life. We have three kids, I found it very hard to find a pt job and things were very expensive.
After three years we decided we didn't love it enough to stay, I'll be honest I found it boring! Scenery fantastic but it didn't feed the kids. I found the education a disappointment as well and so knew if I found Auckland to quiet then moving elsewhere would be worse. Plus the kids were settled at school so I wasn't going to try it.
When we returned home after 6 years we moved to a different area because my husband had never loved where we were from and he could now choose where to go. So we picked a totally new area and love it.
Will we return to New Zealand, possibly at a later date. Maybe when we have travelled and I have spent more time with my family. It was an adventure, but not for us at that time.