poppets

nit Dee, see you on saturday xx

RedMonsk

Excuse my ignorance, what's a PR?!

If we can get something under that price, we would be mortgage free! I can't believe what you can get for your money over there! The average house price in Berkhamsted is now £400,000! Another good reason for the move - our council tax is now about £120 a month and they want to start charging us extra to recycle our rubbish and woe and betide if you put something in the wrong bin! - you get fined.

Sorry, feel better for having a rant about how mad the UK is going!

poppets

PR is permanent residency
we pay rates , but not much i think $1000 yr , & bins are collected by a contractor (you pay) or you buy council bags from supermarket & contarctor collects them too (no charge as its in the cost of buying the bags)
lots of recyling here, we used to put out just 1 bin bag a week in our rental (about 2 in UK) now we have a composter we put out 1 bag a fortnight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (bags cost $9.50 for 5 in Kapiti region)


ok i'm off to bed too , catch you again soon , love to Herts (esp John Lewis)

RedMonsk

Permanent Residency, of course!

How complicated is it to go through the process of immigration? It doesn't look as though it took you too long! You say you hadn't been to NZ before, did you just bite the bullet and fly over with a work visa, whilst waiting for the PR to come through?

Sorry to pick your brains like this, it must be rather late aswell!

lapsed kiwi

If you don't want to be in one of the big cities, but close to beaches, you could try Wanganui, New Plymouth, Timaru, Dunedin, Whangarei, Whakatane - these should all offer good value for money housing and have employment for a carpenter.

RedMonsk

Thanks for that! I have noticed from this forum that there don't appear to be many people settling on the south island - do you think there is any reason for this?!

lapsed kiwi

First, there are more jobs in Auckland and Wellington so easier to find one that suits. Second, a lot of people like big cities so that's the place to head. Last, the climate's a bit warmer - although the north of the SI is arguably one of the nicest climates around

RedMonsk

Yes, I had noticed on a thread when they were discussing the rather unpredictable weather in Wellington that a couple of people were keen to move to Nelson! Though of what I have seen of Wellington, I rather like!

poppets

we started the application (EOI) in feb 2005, got our ITA into NZIS in sept, we got our PR in nov/dec 2005. we moved here in april 2006., so it took us a year from starting process to actually getting here.
we never thought that we'd be given a PR staright away , we thought we'd be given a work to residency visa, but by some fluke we got a PR no probs.

RedMonsk

SarahB says it only took her a couple of weeks to get her PR - but nothing ever goes that smoothly for us! I'm hoping that as Steve is a carpenter, a PR shouldn't be too much of a problem.

It's just trying to narrow down the areas that we look at that is scrambling my tiny brains!

poppets

i think SarahB OH had a job offer so i would have been much quicker
see if this is any help for wellington areas

http://www.tommys.co.nz/?id=98

SarahB

Yeah youre right, but we still never expected it to go through quite as quick as it did. Some of my friends here had job offers too but they still took months to go through...one close to a year. I guess we just applied at the right time and got lucky.

Paladin

Just get your butt over there - you'll love it!!

We hadn't ever been to NZ before either - went all through the PR process and got our PR THEN went on holiday for a reccie trip to see where we wanted to live. Its gotta be a MUCH better place to bring up our two young daughters than this hellhole!

There's some seriously nice expats over there who you will come to know through this site - they're helpful, kind and have good sense of humours! Visit here regularly adn you'l realise who they are rapidly! Great people! ( apart from Poppets - she's just insane!! )

Dave

poppets

i'm getting such a bad rep on here, last night i was fixtures & fittings & now i've progressed to insane (anyway you lot drove me to insanity )
Dr Dr i feel like a pair of curtains ..................pull yourself together woman

Paladin

I rest my case!