pacifica3000

Introduction
Me and my wife visited NZ in 2005 and fell in love with the country. We have always wanted to go back, and today we saw a migration consultant and have decided to make the move. We also have a 2 year old and a 4 year old who we don't want going to school in England. However, I have just been reading this thread http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...or+new+zealand and it's scared me. I really, really want to move my family to NZ, but im not so sure it's the right move any more, any advice would be gratefully received.

My scenario
I'm a polytechnic lecturer and my wife works in administration. I have a post graduate diploma in Education (soon to be a full Masters) and my wife has an NVQ3 in business admin. We have been told that together we should have about 125 points without a job offer for me. I have no intention of moving down to NZ without a job offer, but my main fear is that even with a good job I will not be able to provide a comfortable living for my family. We have a lot of creature comforts here, but we are not really material people. Personally I'm quite happy with a load of books and my telescope to keep me company. My wife isn't a crazy shopper, and my kids are too young to have been programmed by the UK consumer market. That said, I don't want to live like a pauper.

Finances
I've been told to expect a salary of about 70-80k, and I might have about £10k for a deposit for a house. I would like to buy a small 3 bed house, and I don't mind were I live in NZ as long as it's not much colder that the UK! We loved North Island. The trouble is that we have our money tied into 2 properties in the UK. Both properties are rented out and we couldn't really afford to sell them with the value they have lost. We might sell one and leave the other on rent.

Do you think a family of 3 could live on that salary? What might our quality of life be like? Will we be living in bargain basement bins, or will we be able to shop at supermarkets? As I said, I would hate to live like a pauper, all I'm looking for is a good quality of life with no stress.

I would appreciate any advice anyone can give me, and I look forward to using this forum for more advice in the future.

Justcol

Howdy pardner and welcome to BE

i was the one who started that thread in your link
Two things to take into account when reading it
1) yes i am finacially worse off here than in the uk
I could earn more by returning to a jod i hate but i'm not prepared to sell my
soul for finacial gain
2) I could move back to the uk quite easily but i am HAPPIER here.
My wife is a senior lecturer with a masters in education and she earns a good wage.
However it is not 70K and she is possibly one of the most experianced and best
qualified people in the faculty.
Who told you you'd get 70-80K? was it an imigration or employment agent ?.
10kGBP is around $23knz the cheapest nice little house near me (wood,old,no insulation)
would be $300+nz. Curent nz mortgage rates are low but are nowhere
near as low as uk rates so your looking at a $275K loan.
Find a repayment calculator, look up the current NZ mortgage rates online and workit out
I dont want to go through the whole thread again but feel free to pm me
and i will give you my honest opinion, but remember it is only MY opinion.
I dont ever want to put anyone off coming here but i will only ever be a realist and honest

lapsed kiwi

Assume for the moment that you'll get $70k, that sounds reasonable to me based on trying to hire some graduate + expereinced engineers for salary in the mid 60s recently. Now assume your wife gets a job on the average salary of $45k. Well, $115k is a very good household income in NZ, even OK in Auckland.

As Col says, your $23k deposit is not going to go far. If I were you and this was my only capital, I'd be selling at least one of my UK houses. Two of the biggest factors for failing migrants in NZ seem to b lack of money, and living in poor quality rented accommodation.

pacifica3000

Thank you for your honesty. I'm a realist and I'd always rather have the truth over emotional speculation.

I thought this might be the case. Me and my wife are definitely going to sell one property before we come to try and raise as much capital as possible.

BEVS

I would concur with this. There are other factors of course, but these do seem to be the killers.

whitesand

It's very difficult to guage how to manage when you are talking about what you would 'expect' rather than what you would actually have. Actual salary can only be measured when you have a job and salary coming in and a job lined up. You may not get the 'actual' salary quoted to you. You really need to consider and budget for this. It's very difficult to do this from a distance. As others have said the low salaries and the expensive houses are the most difficult hurdles which newcomers have to deal with. Perhaps you should think about renting for a while when you get here. This can ease the burden of house hunting as well as job searching at the same time.

pacifica3000

Thanks for the advice on salaries. I am going to budget some worse case scenarios before making any move. We are planning on renting for a while first anyway, but with a view to buy eventually.