Choose wisely: Southside Rising

Some will of course say: ÅŒtara gets an unfair rap in the media. LOL

Having a quick look at the map around Penrose.
Deoends hugely on your budget.
To the north of Penrose, Mission Bay, Kohimarama, St Heliers all lovely, by the sea and pricey. Remuera posh and v pricey. Glen Innes quite mixed. Glendowie nice I think. One Tree Hill and Ellerslie nice. Stonefields full of lots of new houses, pretty affluent on the whole. For beachside you could go further east to Half Moon Bay and Bucklands Beach, both nice but a longer drive.

I wouldnt bother with most of the bit immediately south of Penrose. Otahuhu, Otara, Mangere, Manurewa etc - they’re not really the best side of NZ IMO. Mangere Bridge is ok.

Basically notth, east and west of Penrose range from ok/fine to fantastic. Deoends how far you want to drive and what your budget is. Immediately south - I’d steer clear.

Any my other specific suburbs ask away.

Thanks - thats a great starter for ten. I've booked a temporary apartment for 2 months in Kobimarama to give us time to house hunt proper when we arrive. I'll come back with specific suburbs to ask about once we're doing that.

I've heard that Buckland Beach is a nice place to live, and Half Moon Bay.

I second those two. Nice beaches nearby. Mangere Bridge is ok, but I'm not sure if the beaches are swimable.

That's not really a big factor considering that for most of last summer a lot of Auckland's popular swimming beaches were deemed to be too filthy for swimming and are contaminated with sewage every time we had a heavy downpour. Those that did still have a green tick were surrounded by other contaminated waters, so I wouldn't trust any of them, as I haven't worked out exactly how the fecal matter decided which beaches to avoid.

This might help: https://safeswim.org.nz

I work in Penrose, got a house in Epsom, which was very convenient (Near Mt St John) - maximum 10 minutes to work, good schools, close to Cornwall Park, Newmarket, handy for the city and motorways etc. I have to move to Parnell now, so it's bit further from work, bit closer to the city.

The beachside suburbs are mostly very nice, Orakei, Kohi, St Heliers, Mission Bay etc. But they are not great for commuting, bit of a hassle to get there and I actually think their facilities are not so good. No supermarkets for example, you need to go to Glenn Innes or Meadowbank for those.

I think the best suburbs are Parnell, Remuera, Epsom, Greenlane, One Tree Hill, parts of Onehunga, Ellerslie. Also Penrose has a trains station which can be very handy if you live near a station. Maybe also consider Royal Oak, Stonefields, Meadowbank. The best bit about all of these suburbs is going to Penrose is against most of the traffic at rush hours.

I wouldn't go south at all, not that anywhere is dangerous or off-limits, it's just not that nice.

North Shore is just too far, the Eastern suburbs like Howick and Bucklands Beach also too far out for me, plus the traffic coming in.