davros1984

That is what happened. Not an exaggeration. The agents spelt out how much the properties sold for. You just have towatch "the block" to see the ridiculous amounts of money are willing to pay. Others here have backed up cv/auction prices. Also there were many campbell live shows and tvnz doco's on this,remember the chinese unlucky number anyone? It was very rare for a property to not go to auction.

garethwm

I agree, but in your original post, you seemed to be talking about asking price, not CV. They are different things. I would hate for someone to see a house on trademe with an asking price of 500k thinking they had to offer 700k in order to have a chance, when they would more than likely get it for 490k with negotiation. If a house has an asking price on it, I would have thought they were legally bound to accept an offer at that price, or the highest offer above that price. Im not sure they can say, <even though we have an offer at our asking price, we will refuse it and go to auction instead>, but I may be wrong on that.

bearskin

Hey, thanks for that.

So, did you feel after moving to another country and then back to the country you started at – that the process of doing that freed you up to be able to then move to another location – even if that was actually in your ‘home’ country? Do you think you would have done that without the move to NZ and back?

Also, another thing I am interested in – did you consider moving to another part of the UK when you were thinking of the move that led you to NZ? For example, when we thought about wanting to move to somewhere else to live, we made a list… something like this:
1. Move to another part of the UK and continue doing the same type of jobs etc
2. Move to another cheaper part of the UK and with the reduced overheads (mortgage etc) maybe change career/start our own business
3. Move to somewhere in Europe
4. Move to another English-speaking country
5. Stay in our current house but change career/start our own business
6. Stay in our current location but move to a cheaper house and with the reduced financial overheads of mortgage: change career/start our own business

So, to be honest – moving to NZ was not our ultimate goal. I think I can sum it up by saying that we just wanted to try living somewhere else. Hence I am always interested in people’s thinking when it comes to that. I am sorry that several members here think I am just being critical.

BEVS

Interesting Bearskin. So how did your eyes alight on, that out of the way place, New Zealand then.
How did it come into your sights?

bearskin

So, yes, we ended up doing #4 on our list.

Why NZ? The main factor is that my brother had lived here for a while… about 3.5 years back in the mid-90s. He’d thoroughly enjoyed it – had bought a villa in Ponsonby and ‘done it up’, and enjoyed the Auckland lifestyle. By the way he always claims to have ‘made a killing’ on his villa when he sold it and moved back to London – he sold it for $370K… I had visited him when he lived in NZ, and then me and Mrs B made a trip down here in 2000 as part of an extended overseas trip; so we’d been as tourists. Apart from that we used the forums that exist to ask lots of questions, and did lots of our own research into what living in NZ might be like.

I honestly wasn’t overly bothered about moving here. I just fancied a change. A couple of our thoughts for example were that I could have happily moved to the Newcastle or Durham area, or the area around Leeds…

However, we came to the conclusion that, family apart, moving 5 hours drive away - we’d be having to make entirely new social network connections (and no, I’m not taking social media like these days – that wasn’t really around much in 2002, and I still don’t use it much), same as we would on the other side of the world…

When I spoke of a 'vision of NZ’ in an earlier post (thrown back in my face) I mean that I would naturally formulate an idea of what living somewhere would be like – I’d imagine what it would be like. I didn’t think I would be living in a big city. I have never lived in London, through choice. I found Bristol just about big enough, and lived in what would be consider an ‘inner city suburb’. I didn’t think I would live in Auckland. I suppose I had in mind somewhere like I said before – New Plymouth, or Dunedin.

Auckland has changed a lot in the 11 years we’ve been here, but I still don’t really think of myself as living ‘in Auckland’ - we cross the bridge maybe once every 2 months? And (just to get back on topic) the house prices haven’t directly affected us as we haven’t moved house – I have no idea what our house we’ve lived in all this time would sell for. Indirectly of course our rates and insurance have skyrocketed…

pippalonghorn

We have moved back to the next village to our original home. We hope to stay in this area for a few years and then move on to a different part of the country. I suppose moving to NZ gave us the confidence to relocate. We came home with no jobs or home so for us we could have set up any where.

There may be words posted that sound critical but at the end of the day all of us posting here have the same thing in common. We have all been brave enough to get off our backsides and try something new, wether we've stayed or returned home.

Spacecake799 I really appreciate your honesty. You had an amazing adventure that many would just dream about.

Spacecake799

Honestly it never crossed our minds to move somewhere else within the UK. We wouldn't have moved our children, they were all more than happy at school. If we had stayed things were changing within OH job so we would have needed to make changes.
I now know I don't do change very well. Were a very quiet family. We have a very small wider family so just thought we would give NZ a go. I found it very hard having to go and register at a new doctors etc.
It was certainly easier after NZ to just pick a random place and give it a go. As long as our son was happy at school we would have stayed anywhere we picked.

Snap Shot

I think it's four because it sounds like the Chinese word for death, apparently.

The Weezer

Thanks for pointing this out. Beyond the neighbourhood comparison, it also highlights why it's NOT so easy to do research before coming to New Zealand. The NZ government isn't particularly transparent, and even less so when it comes to crime statistics. Try finding useful information like this when researching a NZ neighborhood. In the States, where I'll be living next year, useful statistics like those above are available and updated. Also, we can see all town council meeting minutes, as they're made available online.

Davros, I don't think the villa would have commanded more than the asking price. Otahuhu isn't that kind of place, yet. If it wasn't so close to the industrial stuff I'd imagine it might eventually be a good investment. Otahuhu is full of small villas and old bungalows. Possibly no place outside of Grey Lynn has as many. It's yet to be discovered by the hipsters. Actually any house not far from the rail line and motorways would be a good investment. Auckland has limited space because of its topography, so it is inevitable that places like Otahuhu and Mangere, Mangere East, Papatoetoe, etc. will become more desirable. Decades ago Parnell was a bit like Otahuhu, although less industrial Look at it now. It's an artsy fartsy hipster/young professional magnet. And it's expensive. An elderly neighbour of mine bemoans the fact that he sold his Parnell home before it became fashionable. He left because the area was so run down.

The other side of all this, and most relevant to the topic is that, presently, living in Otahuhu is probably not a good option for a British family looking for the good life in NZ.

Bo-Jangles

Indeed!

There is info out there if people want to look, I never would have thought to seek out info on what people clearly perceive as some crime ridden hell hole in Sarf London, but quite encouraging actually to find my secret little oasis of calm only averages 3 or 4 burglaries per month.

I know people will just say that the data is flawed and people don't report crimes etc. in the UK but the same can be said here too.

Moving from anywhere in the UK to South Auckland is a lot like jumping from the frying pan into a great big blooming fire - especially if it's 'anti-social' behaviour, crime and big city problems that you're trying to get away from.

This interactive map of burglaries in Auckland burbs shows that there's plenty of place one should avoid it they think crime in South London is off the scale.

Burglaries in Auckland

barnsleymat

I'm sure most of you will have seen the famous Top Gear USA Special when they were tasked with buying a cheaper than cheap car to head out across the USA to do various challenges. You'll remember them trying to find a cheap car in Miami and every car yard they checked out was out of their price range. So they took some advice that for cheaper cars they had to keep heading south where the cars were cheaper but also the neighbourhoods were rougher.

Otahuhu is the equivalent of where they ended up. A rough place with lots of cheap car yards.

I should know, we bought our car there!

Robbo25

To me (that's my personal opinion) London is a complete hell hole, and I know people from Dartford and I know for a fact from what I was told by them that I certainly wouldn't be living there regardless of the houses and the costs being thrown up.

Stats are stats as has been said, and it doesn't mean it's a fabulous place to live, I doubt anyone reported the human turd that someone did on my local ATM in the very 'nice' area we lived, suffice to say it didn't make the place feel very great. It wouldn't be classed as a crime as neither would the groups of 14 yr olds making it difficult to use the local shops each night.

I wouldn't suggest people live in that part of Otahuhu however I do know someone who rents there with a great and cheap rental overlooking the Manukau, and saying all of South Auckland is bad is just complete nonsense. There are plenty of very affordable and very good areas south of the harbour bridge.

PS
Let's not go through the crime reporting methodologies which I am sure has been done time and time again, but suffice to say there are plenty of genuinely innocent (and good) reasons for the stats to appear higher.

Droidling

Just re-visited Northumberland Heath for a few days,I actually lived in Horsa Rd for 4yrs in the '80's. (used to work at Woolwich Arsenal).
Believe me Bo you would not want to live there now (through choice).
Definitely a case of rose tinted specs !
Barnehurst is still a decent-ish place but house prices reflect that.

davros1984

This post is not to start an argument or a rant, but it is to highlight possibly the frustrations we experienced with some actual facts and proof. - I still read the Herald on a regular basis, hence I've posted it.

A good article in the Herald on Auckland and how much prices have gone up in a number of districts.
Auckland's new CVs revealed: Valuations rise by more than a third - Business - NZ Herald News

We arrived prior to this 55% rise in prices in the past 3 years, for example Forrest Hill, Beach Haven, Milford etc.
I.e a house that would have been $300,000 when we arrived, today would be at least 655-700K. That sort of thing you simply cannot predict (slight increases yes, but not 55%)


When we arrived in 2011, pre-RWC, Forrest Hill, Albany, most houses were in the 300-400K figure.

Bellasmum

Police crime stats FYI

Crime Statistics for the fiscal year ending 30 June 2013 | New Zealand Police