richandsarah3469

First post - please be gentle!

I work in construction (senior management level, 20+ years exp), and after sending my CV to number of international employment agencies recently, a few days ago I received a phone call from a NZ agency

After a long conversation and further follow-up discussions there are 3 large companies who are interested in me and want futher skype interviews etc.

I am very hopeful of an offer at some point soon. Which on the face of it sounds great....but

Up until now I have done literally ZERO research into the pro's and con's of a potential move to NZ (obvioulsy I was waiting until I had some response to my applications).

I am a very positive 'can-do' person, but, having looked through the forum (which is very informative), I am now getting a little worried about the package that may be offered to me, and me being able to afford to live - everything seems so incredibly expensive!!!! Initial rent, deposit, bond etc plus car purchase (I have a company car here)

I believe the salary on offer may be on the face of it very good, I have a wife and 2 children (14 and 12) who would come with me too - so I suppose I'm after some reassurance from people in the know.

What do you think?

Thanks....

PB65

Do you know which area are these companies employing as that could influence any responses on here given you might get a range of views good or bad.

richandsarah3469

Hi.

Thanks for the reply......Auckland CBD....Major construction project.....but clearly with a family would want to live outside the city

MrsFychan

look on sites like trademe for real estate, rental or buying to gain costs.
countdown for cost of shopping.
you will have to pay for schooling and as well as providing all the stationary and then of course any extra activities as they come along.
you pay tax on every cent you earn so check out the IRD site for what you will actually bring home on the salary they are offering.
http://www.ird.govt.nz/calculators/t...ml?id=homepage

You will pay for medical care, be it visiting the GP or hospital.
You could also check out the council website for costs as rates as whether you have a water meter or not.

LittleGreyCat

The exchange rate is all over the place at the moment (blame Boris) but if you assume around $2.2 to the pound then I think (correct me?) that a good salary around Auckland would be the equivalent of £45k-£50k UKP at least.

That is, $99k to $110K NZD.

Even then, a decent house may be significantly more than 5 * your salary.
It depends how much equity you can bring.
The UK housing market seems to be in the same sort of state as the NZ housing market - rising all the time. If you have a decent amount of equity in your current house this will help.

The other point is, have you looked at Google Maps to see how large the city is? Auckland is a mega sprawl and you could have a long commute to get truly out of the city.

It is pretty difficult to give you comparisons until we know where you work at the moment, where you live, and how long a commute is acceptable.

Snap Shot

Hello and welcome to B.E.

Well done on getting a response from an employment agency regarding three construction companies that could be interested in employing you.

I hope you get an attractive offer. Just as a by the way, it took my husband three years to draw level to his old uk salary once he started working here in NZ. (We didn't start looking for jobs until after we arrived in NZ. )

There is less income tax to pay in NZ than in Britain, also, there is no National Insurance requirement here in NZ.

However, there's plenty of other things to pay for that you might have taken for granted to be free in Britain. Health care is free for children up to the age of 13 here in NZ. So your oldest will pay adults costs for dr's appointments, prescriptions etc etc. There's charge for treatment as an A&E walk in as well.

You will probably take one look at the build quality of NZ homes and get straight on the next flight back to Britain ! You will also marvel at how the hell so many average houses can be so expensive. Answer: they are in Auckland. What's the government doing about this ? Um, just nodding and saying, 'more please'. Although one million kiwi dollars is 'only' about half a million pounds. There's probably loads of half million pounds houses in your county for either right reason or none. Good job they're building those huge out of town housing estates to ease Auckland's housing crisis. Sink estates of the future ? No, not in Auckland, surely. Mind you, if it's providing employment......

Not least the fact that yet another Westfield shopping mall has been/will be built for the inhabitants of those housing estates to spend their money in and, of course, another motorway to facilitate travel to, yes you've guessed it, Auckland.

Wrt cars. They are expensive to buy here in NZ. It seems economies can be made by not buying car insurance which is not compulsory here in NZ. Surprising given the way kiwis drive, not least they can drive on their provisional or restricted licence for five years before they have to pass their driving test or their provisional licence will expire. Better than driving on their restricted licence indefinitely like they could do up until a couple of years ago, but still.

It is not surprising that people bring their cars (motorbike, caravan etc ) with them as part of the container shipment if they chose to. We didn't bring our car, a VW Golf. There just wasn't enough value in it to justify the expense of putting it into the container then getting it NZ roadworthy on arrival. It must bring on a hollow laugh when people who have gone through this process see some clapped out old 'crate' of a New Zealand car being driven on the roads here !

We purchased a 2001 Mazda in 2011. It was purchased by a local car dealer here in NZ from Japan as part of a bulk shipment. It's a good quality car and was registered in NZ with that year's registration. Standard practice here NZ. Please be mindful that the car will often pre-date the registration by several years. We paid about five thousand pounds for it. It's the most we had ever paid for a car as prior to that we only purchased 'pocket money' cars for a couple of grand GBP. I had already accepted that we would pay more in NZ for a car than we would have in Britain. However, it's not at the garage every quarter for yet more repairs. Looking at you Fiat Punto I once owned. However, I digress.

It's been good, reliable and cheap to run. Not least petrol is cheaper over here in NZ. The most I've seen it was about one pound five pence per litre back in 2011. It's currently about 85p per litre due to the global fall in oil prices. (There's more comment on the news on the price of petrol going down, rather than Britain they only comment when the price goes up.) The car has got a manual gear box which I prefer. Most of the cars for sale in NZ are automatics. Once again, look on TradeMe.co.nz for price comparison of things. It's not a price comparison website btw, it's classified listings of property for sale or rent, cars etc etc. It's a New Zealand e-bay equivalent.

You would think that cheap petrol, diesel etc would mean cheaper prices of everything else. No. This is New Zealand.

Good luck with your future plans.

richandsarah3469

Thanks for the response(s).

I don't think we will be able to bring too much money with us, as I can't factor-in selling our house before we potentially leave for NZ, and we have minimal savings...2 children, food etc etc !!

Renting is the best option for us initially.

Clearly I need to push for as much as I can salary-wise, but I have a decent salary here in the UK plus a company car, healthcare, pension etc - and it seems a similar package in NZ may simply not be out there??

With regards to where to live, I currently commute approx 1 hr each way, work 8-5, and would idealy not want to exceed that in NZ.

chc4me

Hi Richard and Sarah, The big question is why are you looking to move? Is it a short term move (less than 5 years?) or for the longer term? Moving countries is expensive so do try to have some cash in reserve, but if you are making the move for the right reasons - seldom financial reasons - then it will all work out.

garethwm

Why not wait until they offer you a salary and then work it out? Incredibly is a big word. Auclland house prices are steep, but not compared to London. Prices of Japanese cars, whiteware, computers, TVs, petrol, parking, rates, plus most other things ... are very similar to UK once exchange rates are factored in. You just have to wait on the salary offer and see if it is at least as healthy as your current one, and depending on where you are currently living in UK.

garethwm

Public Hospital visits are free.

jmh

Need to clarify that one as well - many schools ask for 'donations'. Schools in posh areas (e.g. decile 10) ask for higher donations because they get less government funding. Schools in poorer areas (decile 1) often do not ask for donations at all, and some even provide stationary. Also school activities in lower decile schools are often funded too. Most schools are somewhere between those two. So if you insist on living in an expensive part of Auckland you will have high donations. If you are happy to live in a moderate area, they will not be so expensive.

If you or your children have a health emergency where you end up in hospital, so long as you qualify, it will be free. The ambulance service, which is a charity, asks for a donation.

Having moved from London to Auckland, I swapped a 2 bed terrace with a low mortgage for a mortgage-free 3 bed family home in Auckland. I earn about the same as I did before. Basic living costs are similar but individual items (e.g. frontline flea treatment for the dog) cost a lot more. I've managed source some online suppliers for some things. One thing I learned is that you have shop differently than you are used to. The supermarket is not always the cheapest option.

I would approach the whole thing as an adventure. You're lucky to be offered a job, many come without one. You may need to negotiate on salary to make sure you are paid fairly, but give it a try. A positive attitude goes a long way here.

garethwm

I think the answer to your worries comes down to salary. If youre on $200k, you can rent handsomely in Remuera or Parnell and be at work in 10 mins. If $50k, you might be looking somewhere with more affordable housing like Pokeno with a 2 hr rush hour commute. Oq perhaps an uninsulated old villa in Onehunga with a 1 hr commute. Then theres everything else in between. Without knowing your salary youve asked a question like, is a piece of string long enough to wrap a package?

MrsFychan

whats a public hospital ?- anytime I have had to take the kids to A&E or for a scan they have had to pay. the lower amount as we are residents.

Bo-Jangles

And we all know that almost every part of Auckland is expensive and these 'moderate' areas are very hard to come by unless of course we're now considering looking at commuting half way to Hamilton.

I can't think of many moderate areas that don't require at least $800k and even those are not the kind of place where migrants from the UK would hope to live. Posh does not equate with expensive either; Torbay is one of the more 'moderate' Northern suburbs has decile 10 schools and requires $1m budget to purchase a family house.

I'd say anywhere with in Auckland with Decile 1 school would be at the extreme end of the poverty scale (Ranui maybe) and therefore a moot point as they would be an absolute no-go zone for a would-be immigrant of any skilled or professional standing.

garethwm

That probably was a private clinic, I presume. To be honest I am not totally sure how A&E works. I think you normally go to one of the private A&E clinics first then they refer you to hospital A&E if serious enough. All I know is that if you are taken to hospital in an ambulance or need a stay in hospital, it is all free, including any surgery. Also, if you attend one of the public hospital clinics through an appointment, like say the eye clinic or oncology clinic or whatever, that is also all free, including xrays. Public Hospitals are like Wellington Hospital, Hutt Hospital, Middlemore etc. If you sprain your wrist or something minor, you would normally go to one of the private clinics where you would pay, unless the clinic decides it is serious enough to send you to hospital, at which point it becomes free. I think thats how it works.