Reylan

Hi There,

Anyone in Wanganui? Just wondering about different areas there and which are the nice and not so nice places to live - I know every town has both.

Thanks

Snap Shot

I lived in Whanganui from July 2011 to November 2016.

It's a nice little town (ignore anyone who says it's full of gangs, it isn't.)

Avoid Aramoho, Gonville, Castlecliff as places to live. Wanganui East has good and cheap property but personally I would rent there not buy there. We rented in Springvale initially which was a good, predictable suburb. We purchased our house on the College Estate. Property is expensive by comparison to the places I referred to initially, that's why it's jokingly referred to as, 'poverty flats'.

St Johns Hill is a good, expensive-for-Wanganui, suburb aka Mortgage Mountain ! Not for me, though, I just don't want to live on a hill. Durie Hill and Bastia Hill are expensive too but IMO, no big deal and I wouldn't want to live there for the same reason as St John's Hill.

If you want to live in a beach side suburb, without the million dollar price tag, Castlecliff is for you.

Rents are cheap in Wanganui, well, compared to Surrey where we come from anyway. The purchase price of houses is reasonable too.

Please spell the name of the town with an, 'h'. Last year the then mayor of Whanganui asked the National Geographic board of New Zealand to spell the name of the town as Whanganui from then on.

Some older people who live there consider the spelling with an, 'h' as politically correct nonsense. I won't bore you with the reasons why. You will see plenty of examples of it spelled without the 'h' i.e. the local paper is the Wanganui Chronicle etc etc.

BTW, we stayed at the Cooks Gardens Motel on Guyton Street, Whanganui when we came for our initial, 'reconnaissance' prior to moving to Wangas (Wanga Vegas) from Christchurch, NZ where we attempted to settle initially.

Reylan

Thank you Snapshot. I was looking at rentals in the area and, interestingly, most are in the areas you said to avoid.

Reylan

vorno

Any update? Any reasons as to why those particular suburbs are bad?
Cheers.

Justcol

There is a large gang presence in wanganui

Bo-Jangles

Also check for flood prone areas, they've had a fair few problems with some massive floods in recent years: 2015, 2017.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/wanganui-...ectid=11468797

Charismatic

No more so than any other similar town in flyover country I'd have thought? Like most of these towns between Auckland and Wellington they suffer from a brain drain because there isn't an abundance of opportunities of the bright young people.

Framps69

We've just got back from a holiday/fact-finding trip to NZ. We had been before several times to visit family and be tourists, but now that my wife has been granted a permanent residency visa (I am a kiwi citizen) we have decided to emigrate there next year.
One of the places we visited was Whanganui, and had a chat to a real estate agent to get an idea of areas to avoid. Castlecliff was mentioned, but only the old part is to be avoided - there are a lot of new, very nice estates going up at the far end, although we didn't like the fact that you have to drive through the old, tired part to get to the new part. Spoke to someone in the new part who had lived there for 5 years, and he had never seen any trouble spilling over from the old part of Castlecliff. Gonville was mentioned as another not so good area, but Aramoho was deemed to be OK, and when we took a drive around there we liked what we saw - not as flash (or expensive) as somewhere like St Johns Hill, but seemed to be an OK, mid-range area.
We really liked the feel of Whanganui - it's a decent size, property prices are affordable, and the town has all of the amenities you need.

Andrew.Family

We moved to Whanganui at the end of last year and love it. It is a relaxed town and has easy access to bigger towns. Our kids have settled in really well and have better social lives that we do lol. We often pop to Palmerston North for a bit of shopping but on the whole you can buy most things in Whanganui. We looked at lots of houses and if depends on how quickly you want to buy as there may be houses around but it depends on what you are looking for and how much work you want to take on. It is definitely worth researching the flood prone areas as you will always see lovely houses for sale on Anzac Parade in Whanganui East but quite a few of the homes flooded a few years back. There is no British Expat meetings as most people who move here already have family, not like us who didn't know anyone, so if anyone new moves to Whanganui please give a shout out as it would be good to get a social group going to help people integrate, although I have found the people here really friendly here.

vorno

Is there a flood prone map that is available publically?

Bo-Jangles

Flood map: https://horizonsrc.maps.arcgis.com/a...7fe4916d0559eI