Any advice about living in Aukland!
 

Hello,
My husband has been offered a job in Aukland. We will be moving from the UK, husband was thinking of going out before hand and sorting things out there before I move out there with our three young children- ages 7, 3 and 6 month old baby.

We are looking for some advice regarding the following-
1- What are the best areas to look for houses to rent in and around Aukland?
2- How does it work regarding paying for school fees?
3- Helathcare costs?
4- Do they have an equivelent of council tax, gas and electric, water rates etc?? Any other living costs?
5- Any other helpful info/ tips?

Thanks in advance x

Re: Any advice about living in Aukland!
 

Hi
Most important is where is your husbands job going to be in Auckland and what sort of salary which is important for what you can rent.
Do you have a work permit or Residency?
Good luck

Re: Any advice about living in Auckland!
 

Sounds like you have a lot of work to do in terms of understanding what this all means and whether you have a viable job offer that is (a) going to get you a visa and (b) paying enough to sustain you and your family in Auckland (with a c).

Have a look at this fairly recent thread for some background and ideas on costs of living in one of the cheapest areas of Auckland.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/new-z...mation-908799/

Re: Any advice about living in Aukland!
 

Thank you both!
Yes my husband has a viable job offer with a starting salary of $85,000 that will be able to get him a visa. The office is based in Mount Wellington, Auckland.

Re: Any advice about living in Aukland!
 

If there's just going to be one salary, 85k isn't much.
I wouldn't have thought its anywhere near enough to support a growing family.
If you have a reasonable standard of living in the UK I would suggest staying put
as I honestly think you will seriously struggle to survive unless you can bring a good size
chunk of money with you.

Re: Any advice about living in Aukland!
 

If you go on the ird website you can calculate what tax will be paid so you'll have an idea of what's left to live on from 85k.
Have a look on trademe or realestatenz for house prices or rental costs

Re: Any advice about living in Aukland!
 

I've been saying this for 7 years or so.
To be comfortable in NZ anywhere other than Auckland I'd say you need to be earning a combined $100k per annum, plus not going mad on a rental property - maybe maximum $600 per week and bringing a good chunk of savings to set yourself up....Maybe $20k-$30k to pay for up front rental costs, removal costs in NZ, maybe some furniture or an appliance, a car or two, mobile phones etc. Also paying for essentials up front for the first year like car insurance, contents insurance etc.

For Auckland nowadays I'd expect a family will need at least $125k to be comfortable and even then you will have to watch what you spend.

Unless you have money in the bank to set yourself up in NZ or you have a plan to earn more - maybe you plan to work part time ? you will struggle on a salary of $85k per year.
Convert that back to GBP's, take off income tax and national insurance etc....could you afford to rent a house and all the other stuff in the uk and live comfortably ?
If not then you haven't a hope here as it's at least 15-20% more expensive cost of living.
If yes then could you still live comfortably if your costs were increased 20% across the board ?

Re: Any advice about living in Aukland!
 

agree with the posters above. 85k sounds nice when you divide by the current exchange rate but that just skews things. You need to be dividing by 3 I reckon. When we first arrived 4 years ago I was on about 92k with health benefits and it was very tight on one salary so wife had to go to work part-time. I really like Auckland but it's expensive and you need to live reasonably close to work owing to the traffic.