irfanali

Hello
I am about to move to NZ. Can some one plz tell me what is the best place to live in manukau city, Auckland, NZ. I mean in term of close to School, public transport,Parks etc.

Regards

jmh

My pick would be Half Moon Bay.

rinnie79

Howick, Pakuranga, half moon bay, cockle bay, melons bay, point view, Somerville, dannemora, golflands, farm cove, sunnyhills, buck lands beach, eastern beach. Basically any of the eastern suburbs

Moomoo

Yep, second this

shelloil

what about the gardens area off hill road or alfriston way.

rinnie79

The Gardens is nice, so is Hill Park, wattle downs and Conifer Grove but the trouble is they are surrounded by rough areas. They are basically just nice little pockets within Manurewa which has one of the highest crime and unemployment rates in NZ. If you have the money and want to go rural, Whitford or Clevedon would be the way to go.

shelloil

thats just your option. not every one can afford rural whitford area.
mankau heights is a nice area great views of auckland city.

Snap Shot

My mother in law lives in Pakuranga/Farm cove. She's 79 today. She likes it.

Quiet streets, very few cars, hardly any pedestrians. One residential street leads to another residential street, leads to another residential street ad infinitum. I just get this feeling of being sucked deeper and deeper into it. You'd never know you've left overcrowded Britain, well, as far as housing goes anyway.

MIL likes to shop in Botany (yet another shopping mall, no real town centre) or Dannemora (yet another shopping mall, no real town centre) there is Sylvia Park (yet another shopping mall, no real town centre). Pakauranga Shopping Centre is just that, just another mall.

So if you like malls and suburbs it's for you. Dull, no real character, but I guess that's my view of Auckland as a whole.

She goes to Aquarobics at the swimming pool in Lloyd Elsmore Park.

So, it's ok if you're retired and you don't drive anymore. Mother's Day duty visit due shortly.

The Weezer

I have to agree with you, Snap Shot. My child attends school in the Howick area, and dear husband has his business headquarters there. I know the area well. Dannemora and surrounding suburbs are relatively new, and there's house after house, only a few parks for so many residents, almost none of them having much of a back yard if they're newish, and the older houses that have a bit of land are 60s, 70s era and would certainly be considered do ups outside of NZ (lack of insulation and/or heating, weepy windows). Also, must avoid leakey homes. Howick has a shedload of thses. Let Google be your friend and use google maps and street view to have a look.

Some suburbs have gorgeous sea views, but houses with a view are expensive, of course. A couple we know who bought a house last year paid $550,000 for a 90 sq. m. house, with tiny back yard in a coastal suburb of Howick. It's not properly modernised as to heat efficiency and heating (so few are). Prices have risen since then. Another couple we know in the same suburb live in a larger house, which they bought about 5 years ago, when prices we much lower. It's dreadfully cold and damp, especially in the lower level with bare concrete walls. This is where the children's bedrooms are. (In my observation, Kiwi kids' bedrooms are often in the coldest, dampest part of a home).

I have to agree with Davros. It would be difficult to find a decent home for under $600,000 in Howick, and anything close to that price will either be tiny and/or a real do up.

The suburb I speak of boasts decile 10 schools, so presumably the area has a relatively wealthy population. My child attends school in this suburb. We're not impressed. The classroom reeks of damp. Academics are secondary to sports. But then, if you are looking to live in NZ, this shouldn't be a bother. In fact, it would have to be an advantage, otherwise you'll be unhappy with the education system.

rinnie79

So then what suburbs in the Manukau city area WOULD you people recommend? I, myself would much rather buy a cold, damp do-up in a good area as opposed to a nice warm home in say, Manurewa. Infact I did! We bought our home here in Howick 2 years ago, have slowly been doing things to it, have had it insulated, a wood burner installed as well as a heat pump. It is so incredibly toasty warm and very dry. We paid 450k, haven't really spent much on it and it's now worth close to 700k. If we'd bought the nice new house in Manurewa it wouldn't have gained that much. Yes there is house after house but where isn't there in suburbia? All suburbs are the same in that way. The newer areas like Dannemora are built a bit close to each other but the older suburbs such as Pakuranga and Howick aren't. There are plenty of parks and tonnes of excellent schools in the Easrern suburbs as well as public facilities like Lloyd Elsmore Park and other sports venues as well as gyms, movies, pools, shopping centres, libraries, supermarkets, cafés etc
'The Weezer', can I ask why you are sending your child to a school, obviously out of your area, if you are unhappy with it. Why not a school closer to your home?

The Weezer

Are there any nice warm homes in Manurewa?
Before we thoroughly insulated our house, we managed to make it somewhat warm by installing a huge heat pump and keeping it on high all day and night. Huge heating bills, and a horrendous waste of energy as the house retained no heat. The minute the heat pump was turned off it got cold again. With enormous amounts of insulation, we now only use the heat pump consistently on the coldest days, and it's set at a much lower temp. and the heat is retained once it's turned off.

My child goes to school in the Eastern Suburbs because that's where the preschool was and we wanted continuity. There's no way I would send my child to a school closer to home. I've worked in them, and they're no place for a sensitive soul.

We're not all that unhappy with the current school. I was just making the point that the schools tend to be built like the houses, that they're damp and poorly heated. The school otherwise isn't bad, and some might consider it a good school. We're not that worried about it at this point as we have one foot out the door and will be moving away probably by the end of the year.

I agree about buying a do up in a better area, but I have to say, it could be argued that all the houses you linked to on TradeMe would be considered do ups. I can see the weepy windows, and likely lack of insulation and good heating. Fixing them up to a proper standard would take time and money, which has to be factored into the price. Unless you want to do it the Kiwi way, and not be bothered about such things.

I think Howick and environs is where I would recommend, if you're looking for quiet suburbs not far from the beach. It's less crowded than the lower North Shore, but not too far from the CBD, hospitals and airport. I'm not that keen on Dannemora and East Tamaki. The new builds don't have much land, and they're built with weepy windows and insufficient heating, so it's only somewhat better than an older house. I would definetly not recommend lots of South Auckland if you have children, but if you don't it might be a good place to try and get on the property ladder if you don't have a large deposit for a house.

chocolate cake

Traditionally Pakuranga/Howick houses will be older and not initially built on top of each other like the new suburbs, but so many of the former end of sub divided in 2 or 3 plots anyway, or when next up for a sale have '..ripe for subdivision..' tag.

That said I bought such a house a couple of years ago, and am happy enough, as not too fussed to have a large garden. I've added heat pumps and some insulation, plus use dehumidifier and all in all a hell of difference to the rentals I stayed in for the first 4 years, which were typically cold n damp for 4 months of the year.

homeprofessional

There are areas in Manukau that are nice, despite being amonst rougher areas, eg Wattle Downs, The Gardens and Manukau Heights where prices have increased dramatically in the last 3 years. I lived in Wattle Downs for 3 years and never had any problems with crime and even used to go for runs around the lovely areas and felt very safe. Kids played in the park with other kids for hours on end, no problems.

The Weezer

I was basing my recommendations for places to live in Manukau City on where you can find somewhat affordable houses, that is, where you can find houses under 1 million. I was also thinking of places that are not surrounded by run-down neighborhoods with dilapidated housing. East Tamaki for example is a suburb of mostly new developments, but it sits hard up against Otara, truly one of the (to me) scariest suburbs in all of Auckland. The movie "Once were Warriors" was filmed there. Wattle Downs, while an ok suburb with water views, is surrounded by somewhat unsavoury neighborhoods with run down housing and grafitti, which I believe have gotten a bit worse in the last few years, at least in my observation. It depends on what you are looking for in your move to Auckland. We don't live in a smart suburb, and it's been ok so far, but then we don't intend to stay long term.

It's a bit difficult to make suggestions of where to live in an area as huge as Manukau city, which is essentially New Zealand's third largest city, without having some idea of budget, how much land is desired, how many bedrooms, condition of property, etc. Manukau includes places like Otara, but also suburbs like Whitford where many houses are well over a million, and which arguably has some of the best rural and sea views in the Auckland area.

I think if you intend to live in a less run down suburb in Manukau, in a reasonably sized house with a yard for the children, and isn't too much of a do up, you'll certainly need to budget over 600,000, and you'll likely need to pay considerably more.

Bo-Jangles

I'm assuming real estate agent from your name.

I agree there are some isolated pockets of niceness in Manukau around the Botanical Gardens area, however the point was well made earlier that they are surrounded by far less desirable areas. My main concern would be for the kids; they are no doubt going to be overwhelmed and influenced at senior schools by folks from a far less sunny side of the street.