British Expats - ?Moving to NZ

lot of questions, :)

regarding "will I like it, Will we make friends, will the kids settle"?
no one can answer for you.

Been here since January, kids 10 and 6 have made friends but then we had set up a contact with a family here before we came over and I managed to get a part time role in the after school care club so they also made friends that way.

House selling is a nightmare being in the other side of the world. We had a buyer before we moved over but as with the UK the first sale fell through on day of exchange, we had made all our arrangements around that sale so left as planned with the property back on the market. Water leak was discovered by the new buyers surveyor so that nearly caused that sale to fall through but luckily the buyer really wanted the place so agreed to have works done during the process and after sale if required, we just put in the contract that we would meet all reasonable costs.
If I could do it again I personally wouldn't move out until the house was completed. but if you have the option to rent out your home that is an option to look at, but wasn't an option for us.

Shipping stuff over - we shipped practically everything, double oven, washing machine, dishwasher. But have seen that houses are sold with ovens and most are singles. Husband loves his oven so we either buy a new build and have it added to the build or we buy a property and have the kitchen refurb. As the oven is here its a going concern and keeps factoring in. If I had the choice again I would of sold it in the UK, even had a buyer for it, and told husband that tough it wasn't coming.
We had to buy a fridge/freezer, mattresses,(slept with them on the floor until container turned up) hoover for the rental as we arrived in January but container didn't arrive until early March so unless you are really attached to stuff just buy when you're here.

Jobs for kids when they leave school?, not sure that they are much different to the UK, lots of kids go off for their Overseas Experience in their late teens early twenties. I suppose as everywhere it depends on what field of work they want to do.

Visa - husband got a job offer so obtained a works visa and at the same time applied for PR. We wanted the option for the kids to go on and get Citizenship to give them more options in their later lives.
Think you need to work out a time scale on how long you want to be here. It is very expensive whatever option you take. We have said that we don't have to make it our forever country but we will do a minimum of 5years and see how we feel and how the kids are doing.

We emigrated because husband wasn't happy in his job, but he is actually working harder and longer hours here and on the same sort of money he was on in the UK. But we do have more family outings because we live in a bay so to get to the sea its under 10mins walk and we have 3 other beaches within 30mins drive. We're in a smaller community, people say hello, knock on your door if you leave your car lights on, the area is cleaner.
Shopping can be more expensive than what it was in the UK, NZ is a remote island so you are a captive audience so prices are what they want to charge plus there are less people to buy keeping prices up.

You say your husband has family here, great ready made friends, but what about your family? how would you feel about leaving them and not seeing them for a few years, what about contact for the children to your side of the family. Yes there is Skype but would your parents/family members use it.
Husbands side of the family back in the UK use Skype, my brother uses Skype but my mother won't.
Letter writing has come back into fashion in our household so we can still have contact with my mother and we have had a few phone calls home as my mum ended up in hospital. Nearly had a flight booked to go back but managed to be calmed down by Skype with brother, but you do need to think about things like that and how you would cope.

I think thats enough from me for now.

Happy researching and look forward to chatting with you more whatever you decide to do.

QUOTE=a-team12;10012305]Hi
I was advised to look at this site by a friend who lives in NZ and used the site a lot in her early days there.
Me & my family visited NZ for a month over Xmas (my husband has family over there), and since then we are thinking about emigrating. My profession is on the long-term skills shortages list (Speech & Language Therapy) but I have lots of questions, such as:
- should I apply for a residence visa (which seems to be costly and takes a long time) or a work visa (which seems quicker & cheaper, but you need a job offer)?
- at what point should we put the house on the market - before or after I've got a job offer? before I start the visa application?
- should we ship all our stuff over or sell everything and buy new over there?
- will I like it?
- will we make friends?
- will the kids settle at school (they are 13 & 15)? One of my daughters is worried about being picked on cos of her accent, but I tell her the Kiwi's love the english accent - am I right?
It's such a big step and I just wish I knew if we are making the right decision. I've got a job I love in the UK, but we just feel that the opportunities for the kids when they leave school will be so much better in NZ than in the UK.
Any advice / comments would be really appreciated. :)[/QUOTE]