Scousebird

What did most people do on finding accommodation when they land in NZ? Do they use an agent to find somewhere to rent initially then wait a while to check the areas out before moving on or do the research first and find a place on internet? Need to be a bit organised as will have young children in tow so can't do what I've done before.

Thanks

lindam

Most of the Estate Agents have rental properties so pretty easy to check out on the net, Im sure folks out there now on here would help with letting you know what the areas are like - good luck

Scousebird

thats reassuring cheers.

lisamct

I had a motel room for the first few weeks to give me time to find my feet and look about for rentals. If you email a few places you;ll find you'll get a much better rate if you book for a few weeks than they advertise on the web.

Its true that there are loads of rentals on the web but after just going through the hassle of finding a rental myself you'll find, or at least I found, that a lot of the houses youll see on sites like TradeMe are already rented out as it sometimes takes weeks to update the website and houses go fast.
There's houses on there in my area that still show as for rent that I know were already rented out when I started looking a week ago so its always best to wait and go round the offices in person.


Also houses can look deceivingly nice on TradeMe when in fact they're pretty awful in real life so nothing beats an actual look (and smell) around!

Scousebird

did this work out with the transport of your belongings also? obviously I want to be in a place where I can have my belongings delivered to, but the downside is that I'll need somewhere furnished until they arrive given my children.

lisamct

Ok, firstly my shippers were happy to take a temporary address in NZ to start off with knowing that I would send on my more permanent address when I got one (as long as you can give them it before your stuff docks in NZ) I didnt send my boxes until the day after I left so I knew I had @12 weeks to find somewhere before it became an issue.
Not sure how that would work if you were still in temporary when they arrive though? But, if your not sending stuff until around when you leave you shouldnt have a problem finding somewhere in plenty of time to give a permanent address.

Finding somewhere furnished and suitable might not be easy depending on where your planning on going. My original plan was to find somewhere furnished as I'm not shipping any furniture but found it impossible to find somewhere that I liked, or could even put up with for a few months until something better came up. Might depend on where your heading for though as other areas might have a better choice than I found here in Rotorua.

Scousebird

cheers least I've an idea.

simonsi

Hi, we also had children in tow on arrival, aged 12 to 4. We booked some holiday accomodation for the first two weeks and set about looking at rentals alongside looking at schools. Having an idea of primary schools let us focus on rentals in that zone. We secured a great property within walking distance of both the schools and the kindergarten so a right result!

We are now camping on airbeds with sleeping bags until the furniture turns up with other essentials such as fridge, washing machine and tv provided temp by Mr Rental.... pm me for more details if you want to. The girls are settling in great and view the camping as a bit of an adventure

Meeto

I'm green with envy, you're getting thru the thick of it and starting to settle down. Who'd you decide to use for shipping to NZ? I know your stuff's yet to arrive for the full picture, but I'm searching the network as to whom to use...

simonsi

We used Atlantic International Movers, very happy so far...