Nimbus320

I'm afraid that certainly wasn't what we found when we were looking at houses last week as, generally, they were quite a lot smaller than equivalent UK houses, and vastly more expensive to rent, size for size........plus gardens were tiny or pretty much non-existant, with just a balcony to relax on.

Allan

Bo-Jangles

Yeah, nah it ain't all that cold at all! I wonder whatever the shops must all be thinking, packed full to the gunwhales of 'Winter Warming' offers. Heaters of every imaginable kind on display by the front door of every major store; yards and yards of flannelette sheeting in all their full floral glory, the fake mink blankets, thermal undies, hot water bottles, fleecy jamas and dehumidifiers are all totally wasted here, eh?

DC10

Maybe houses are bigger in Southampton... certainly not in London. Looking at this I would think NZ is a lot closer to Aus than the UK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8201900.stm

Admittedly the data is for new builds.

Stormer999

BJ our shops stock BBQ's and outside furniture..........they are certainly wasted here....

dannigirl

Ha ha that is classic!!!

DerekZoolander

The sarcasm levels of this thread are frankly ridiculous

ExKiwilass

ha ha!

MOSO

I would agree with DC10, but it depends on which areas of Wellington you were looking at and which area of the UK you come from. The houses in Wellington are certainly larger and cheaper than a lot of other capital cities including London. If you want space/cheaper rent, then you have to move out to the suburbs. Lower/Upper Hutt are flatter and cheaper. Whitby and other suburbs around Porirua are also cheaper/more spacious.

We're even further out on the Kapiti coast. Our rental for a warm insulated 3 bed house last year was $320 per week, that wouldn't have got us a garden shed in Hertfordshire! We have now bought, have double the size house for less than half the price of our UK house and the garden is easily 5 times as big and flat! We're also not allowed to extend 1.5m from our boundary. The price we pay is a 50min train ride into Wellington. So my advice would be to look round, if you prioritise space then move out of the centre.

You may like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWVoaf3OuN8

ExKiwilass

Kapiti's nice and warmer too, but yeah, you pay in commute times.

Am Loolah

That made me laugh out loud!

Kiwiprincess

Yes the quality can be awful

Don't dismiss a place based on what it looks like outside

Don't be convinced by aesthetics

There is a huge variety out there. Don't be put off by older looking houses if the area is nice. They may be colder. If they are, walk on by. But also look at them.

Look further afield for a nice property in Wellington. It's expensive. And houses are cold. But people pay more for property here. Be realistic - if you want more than what you are getting then maybe you need to pay more. I know that sounds really simplistic and/or snarky. it's not supposed to be. But I think sometimes people (not you, just other people i have encountered) forget that even if housing is overpriced (agreed) if you want better you need to pay for it. Or widen your net.

And don't dismiss older houses. Insulation became mandatory in 1978. I know people say that they've seen houses where it wasn't done. Or it was removed or whatever. Well, too bad. The plural of anecdote is not data. It was, however, substandard especially to todays conditions. No arguments there.

But a lot of people have taken up various schemes in Wellington to insulate their properties. There were trusts doing it here before it was rolled out across the country. Even rental properties - landlords loved the fact they could do it and up the rent (!!) so a lot did it. Ok a lot didn't as well. But it means that it's certainly worth asking rather than assuming "house from the 1960s, therefore cold".

And yes the size of the homes and the large windows are a huge factor in the coldness. Fact is for many years people erroneously thought that the firewood they were using was a renewable resource. Wood may be, what they were using, wasn't. But it meant that it was assuming you had a fireplace and that fireplace would be nicely chugging away with warmth all day. Course that didn't happen. They built those big 1960s houses with fireplaces and big windows at the time that women were going back to work. Couldn't rely on someone to be stoking the fire all day after that. No, I'm not blaming women returning to work as the reason!! But it's interesting, to me at least that all those things came at once. Fwiw, a lot did have underfloor ducted heated from oil cylinders. My parents place did and so did most of the houses in the area. They were mostly taken out in the 1970s but it's interesting that when people say that NZ houses are cold...they ignore the fact that many houses in the post WW2/mainly early 60s and middle to upper middle tracts were built facing the sun, with fireplaces, with underfloor ducts, and even yes had insulation (poor insulation though).

Doesn't change the fact they are still icicles. Just that there are some quite interesting (to me) reasons for it.

Put simply: houses are bad. You either pay what you want and live somewhere bad or you move further out. OR you up what you want to pay.

And live somewhere further out for even more options!!

Good luck. I'm tired as heck so I'm probably ranting. I tend to agree that housing is bad. I just think there are ways and means around it. But that's probably still won't include central heating!

simonsi

Love that! Soooo right and many peeps need to understand there is much more anecdote on here than data

ExKiwilass

Of course, it's a forum for people, to like, talk, not the Statistics NZ site.

davros1984

An interesting discussion so far..... one word for me to describe the quality of housing here would be "shocking". We have been fortunate to have found a nice flat in Takapuna. Yes rentals appear more expensive, but FYI..... the difference here is that the landlords pay the rates aka council tax and this is included as part of your rental fee. So factor in the price of council tax when looking at rental prices. Doing this, we found that the properties were similarly or slightly priced to that of the UK.

As for the cold.. haven't experienced it here yet in Auckland. Will probably look to pick up an electric fire and a dehumidifier in times. We met a UK couple last week and they quoted "we have yet to wear a coat here" and they've lived here for 2 years!

Remember, New Zealand is another country on the other side of the world, it is not paradise.

simonsi

Same beach, same time, some in winter coats, trousers and boots, others in T, shorts and barefoot - its not the weather that counts so much as the individual...