Stormer999

Next question........ WEST Chch what are good residential areas or more important are there any bad areas?
Is there a rental property rag?

NSWP

Are you serious? I worked in Christchurch (ChCh) as an insurance investigator for 3 months last year, liquification has been the problem all over ChCh. 20,000 residents have moved out in the past 2 years. Still daily tremors of 3 on Richter scale.

I hate the quakes..feel real sorry for the residents of ChCh, many are still awaiting for insurance finalisation, 2 years later.

Tragic.

Stormer999

Yes I wouldn't ask the question if I was not serious The floods you lot are getting would really scare me ... We were flooded out in the UK.....scaring....

Persephone

Liquefaction has not been been a problem all over Chch. The Western suburbs have not been affected as they're not on marshy/sandy ground, though Halswell has had some problems.

Stormer, are you planning on buying at some point or just looking for rentals as a temporary measure? Any reason why you're favouring the East side? Personally I would be looking at other areas as we don't really know whether the dreaded liquefaction will strike again. In simple terms if you draw a north-south line through the CBD and look to the west of that then you won't go far wrong.
I am not writing off the whole east side as there are some good areas there but in terms of earthquake and potential future quake damage, the west side has been pretty much unaffected.
Try Trademe for rental prices and areas if you haven't already. Don't recall ever seeing a rental property paper

Stormer999

'P' I have just realised I have posted East but I meant West....
Will ask one of the mods for help.....

Stormer999

Start again I meant West NOT East.......It was early morning.....

Persephone

I do seem to recall you posting somewhere about getting confused about direction in NZ...

In my opinion there aren't any really bad areas that you should avoid. So it comes down to your price range and where you want to be-is it important to be close to work or is a commute ok? I live on the west edge of town [fields at the end of the road] and it takes me 35mins to reach the coast and probably 10-20mins to get into town [depending on traffic]
I don't live in one of the 'better' suburbs but it's not that obvious to tell. Where I am is ok, never seen any crime and it is very quiet. I live in a 7 year old house on a newish subdivision.
It depends on what you want. The reason we chose here: easy commute for both of us, we liked the house, the area looked reasonable and we didn't want to be rural, close enough to shops and the price was right. Actually commuting time was the main factor for us as to where we lived.

You could find some good places to live on the east side but you'd have to be careful about where you chose.
Another factor to bear in mind is insurance. I'm not sure where we are with that at the moment but if you are buying then make sure you can get insurance or take over a policy from the previous owner. Need more research on that-it may be that companies have now started insuring new clients.

theghostofdustybin

Be gone silly man and leave adults to chat, now there's a good chap.

As for earthquakes, 3's are for girls

As P says most of the west is fine. Just have a look about and see what suits. Even the 'posh' areas might have the odd crappy house on the street. Nothing to get worked up about.

Have a poke about when you get here or indeed trademe is your friend, and if you rent the worst thing you might get is to live somewhere for 6 months while you work out what suits you. Trust your instincts and apply a bit of the rarely seen common sense and you'll be fine.

Stormer999

Thanks peeps grateful for the advice. I have always had a great sense of direction.. I have only just realised that it only applies in the Northern Hemisphere...
Must pack a compass....

Jan n Neil

and to clarify, there are no longer "3s on a daily basis" we have had the quietest seismic period since Sep 2011 and its often days without any shakes For ChCh this is very good - heading towards Wellington territory

Rental property is currently increasingly hard to find anywhere in the city. We (at the Uni where we are concerned about students finding rentals)think this will get worse not better as there is an influx of workers to repair the city. we currently know a couple who are literally homeless for 6 weeks as they had to move rentals, and are considering camping to tide them over (its summer - allegedly). But they are still both working......

You may need to move further out for rentals, if you;re not arriving for a while.

Jan

Stormer999

The way Chch is settling down http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/today
you will soon be quieter than here http://www.quakes.bgs.ac.uk/earthqua...uk_events.html
The rental situation I was a little concerned about for the reason you pointed out. We arrive 18th March and have a couple of free weeks to find a rental and transport. Then replacement motorbikes,,,,

BEVS

derab

Sorry to be the one to say this, but the 3's are actually daily at the moment..
I run a counter for my UK family on my facebook page, (days since the last 7/6/5/4/3) and the last time we went a clear day without a 3 was the 29th of January. before that it was before the December 23rd event.
oh, and the 4 is getting re-set tomorrow morning

Persephone

Felt a bit of a shake about 20 mins ago, not big and scary but my first since returning to NZ


That was a 4.2 but over near Lyttelton so not that much to talk about over here!

derab

I agree with the previous posters, take a line down the main north Rd, Cranford st and Colombo st, keep west of that line and you should be pretty right.
East of that line you might be right (bits of Sydenham, Redwood and Shirley) but nothing is certain, they have a suburb on that side called marshlands, for obvious reasons (they have escaped the gruesome stuff so far though). I work with someone who lives in Yaldhust who reckons there hasnt been a shove in 2012, whilst I felt the 5.7 the other morning (it was 500 KM away, between the islands) never mind the daily 3's and tonights 4.
I am 1 street east of Colombo St near the hills for the record, my rental (the house I own is very stuffed in Huntsbury) is extremely loose and the washing machine manages to shake stuff off the shelves when its on spin.