readitallthanks

Hi, have lived in UK & New Zealand both ways last 12 years.
I feel like my association with New Zealand has come to an end. Its incredibly expensive for what you get - food, housing etc, nearly everything is in a crisis (housing, health etc).
Food is just insane prices because the supermarkets are a cartel.

Housing stock is abysmal for what you have to pay - its a ponzi - the houses are shacks.
The ponzi has been run by australian banks fleecing New Zealand - the whole of New Zealand is one big property magazine.
Living in Auckland, it hasn't stopped raining all summer - the weather here has definitely changed in only a decade.
Auckland is touted as a world class city - it isn't. They can't even run buses & trains. The roads are clogged every day making living slightly out a nightmare.
Work here is appalling - kiwis love living in a crisis with a "she'll be right" attitude - which makes work misery.
The shelves at supermarkets have been bare on some sections (salad, eggs) for 6+ weeks now. Unless you go at 7am you don't get much choice.
There has been a one way exit for Australia since I have been here - I get why.

Everything is just a little odd here, stuff you go to see is simply underwhelming.
There is little to no quality here. If it is you are paying megabux - stuff only millionaires can afford.
Its a shame. There is only 4.8 million people in New Zealand - it could be a great place but there are so many problems for a small place - any Kiwi will tell you its great - because they don't know any better and will always do whataboutery - they cannot hack any criticism of New Zealand - as long as they have their beer (piss) and their fishing boat - they think its paradise - it's not.

Its a very hard place to get on - I do not know how people on average salaries and essential workers live - it must be very very hard going.
New Zealand is always one step away from disaster - the main cities are all in line for some natural disaster one way or the other - they are woefully unprepared. Recent rain/cyclone events have shown how lacking in zoning/planning, preparation and response they are.

So where next? Back to UK or try Australia?
For all UK's faults at present its seems more appealing than New Zealand right now but given I am not overly keen on returning to UK I would like to try somewhere else.
Any thoughts appreciated.

tht

If your going to Australia you should become an NZ Citizen before you leave.

I did 3+ years in NZ between 2004 and 2008. Even back then the income to cost ratio was not great so unless you came having sold a house in the UK and brought significant capital the house/batch/4x4/boat dream (as promoted in the NZ embassy in London on posters) was not happening.

After I left as an NZ LPR with an Indefinite RRV I moved to Ireland and then to the US through a work transfer. I have since become an LPR and then USC.. here the cost to earnings ratio has allowed me to to first live in NYC, and after getting married and starting a family move to a house in CT and then buy a lake/ski house similar to a kiwi batch…

I agree with some of your comments on cost, but focusing on things like the recent cyclone seems like a stretch… parts of Florida got decimated by a Hurricane last year, it’s not a NZ only thing that people have built places climate change will impact. For me I now won’t buy a place unless it’s at least 100 feet above sea level…

Knowing nothing about your age / skill set and experience my guess is your easiest path would be to become a NZ Citizen and move to Australia… like America it is so big you can live in many different types of climate from rain forest to dessert…

readitallthanks

Yeah i didn't get my citizenship last time I was here which was an error. It would be another 2.5 years here - I am not sure I can stomach that.
I have worked for an australian company in NZ so working with people in australia - it wasn't a much better experience... so not sure.
For natural disasters - its not just cyclones or floods - you are looking at earthquakes in wellington and christchurch which are not fun - that just leaves auckland which is simply impossible to rent/buy in.

Yeah jealous - USA would be better for cost ratio! Good work.

Moses2013

Most will suggest Australia and I'd agree with tht, but it might be out of the frying pan into the fire. Unless you have the money or tools to make it work, you might experience the same problems. Speaking to people, everywhere they are complaining about cost of living and it's not as if Australia is less prone to climate change either. Maybe NZ isn't as bad and it's just the global situation. In reality every city sucks in a way and the more we build the less desirable it becomes, so maybe moving out of Auckland would help. I'm in Europe and be it Ireland where I live, Canada, US, UK etc., all people moan and especially those who can't afford property. We are lucky to have bought when prices were low and wanted to stay in Europe anyway, it would be very different moving now. Of course the world is also not just the few English speaking countries and there might be a lot more out there for you.

Pulaski

NZ may have it worse, I don't know, I have never lived there, but over the past decade, probably 15 years since the great recession, everywhere and everything in the western/ industrialized countries has become more expensive, and life more difficult, economically. This trend accelerated sharply during the last three years as Covid messed with everything.

There may be good reasons for you to leave New Zealand (as I said, I can't really comment on that), but whether you go to Australia, return to the UK, or strike out in another direction entirely, I would caution you against expecting a massive improvement in how you experience life, at least not unless you obtain work with significantly higher pay relative to the local cost of living.

readitallthanks

I disagree - this comes back to this comparison stuff. You have to put things into context. There is absolutely no reason for housing to be this expensive in New Zealand - none. Its just a ponzi.
Food - its a supplying country with plenty - but it exports. Then we get sold back by the supermarket cartel of foodstuffs & woolworths/countdown.

I dont want to live in Cch or WLG as Im not up for ground shaking - lived in WLG for 5 years.

readitallthanks

I earn a lot here compared to the average.
The costs in New Zealand have always been higher than most places, the ratios for housing are the worst in the OECD.

Pulaski

I don't think you know what a Ponzi scheme is. It's a type of investment fraud where the underlying investment, which could be anything from banking or securities to commodity trading or postage stamps, doesn't make enough of a profit to generate the returns expected/ advertised, so money from new investors is diverted to pay for withdrawals by earlier investors.

Housing in New Zealand might be expensive, even overpriced, but there is no covert, fraudulent transfer of value from new buyers to people who bought some years ago who are now selling.

I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that New Zealand suffered from a similar excess demand problem by Chinese, that Vancouver in Canada does, with wealthy Chinese becoming the dominant buyers in the market even when they have no right to live in the country.

readitallthanks

I know exactly what a ponzi is - have a look at the aussie banks books and how much housing makes up of NZ gdp - its hocus pocus.
The whole thing is total bs and its now finally unwinding.

Yes the whole of north shore has been bought up by chinese developers.

Pulaski

Neither of which are indicative or, or have anything to do with, a Ponzi scheme OK, now you're admitting that you don't know what you're talking about. And that's proof that it isn't, and cannot be a Ponzi scheme - a Ponzi scheme cannot be "unwound" without legal intervention, and some sort of receiver appointed. When a Ponzi scheme is identified, the only equitable solution is to close the investment scheme immediately, seize any remaining assets, and pay off investors an equal percentage of their initial investment, but in the NZ housing market there is no "investment manager", no "investment scheme" to close, and no jointly owned assets (under control of the manager/ Ponzi scheme operator) to seize and liquidate, unless you're suggesting that all houses that have changed hands in NZ in the past x years, should be forfeit to a receiver and be auctioned off and the proceeds distributed to buyers who had their homes forfeited.

A Ponzi scheme, by definition, has some of the investors who cannot get their invested money back from the investment manager, but what you're describing has no investment manager, and if people bought a house and now cannot sell at a price equal to or higher than what they paid, then that is a trading loss, no different from buying shares on the stock exchange and finding that the price has fallen when you want to sell.

Whether banks were too willing to lend, and are over weight in NZ residential mortgages, is an entirely separate matter, but again has nothing to do with a Ponzi scheme.

readitallthanks

Got a live one here. Read wikipedia/chatgpt all day on forums?
Youre the on that doesnt know what they are talking about champ.

its a ponzi. Deal with it.

Genesis

Well, in the same frank and open ‘warts and all’ vein of above, none of which I disagree with by the way...... the U.K. is in a more parlous state than NZ!! At least we have space here. Oz has many issues around climate change too. Fire, flood and drought. I spent 3 months in Oz and I could not live there, not the most enlightened bunch I found when it comes to diversity. The heat too was oppressive, not only some of the people!

There is no where that does not have significant issues these days and obviously like most of us you are limited by your right of abode unless you have some sought after skill.

I certainly could not or would never return to live in the U.K. I spent 45 years there and IMHO it is a dystopian place now. My siblings there keep me updated on how shite it is, both in London and Devon. Been here for 18 years and it is home now, even with all its faults and lack of elongated history a la old buildings, churches, pubs etc which I love.

Justcol

Fairly pointless thread as you don't want suggestions, sounds like you just want to vent because you can't afford a house
it's obvious NZ isn't for you and from your rants I honestly can't think of anywhere that would be. You've said a lot about what you don't like but nothing about what you actually want.
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Mishclark

Coming in as am Australian who is in NZ, I was stuck in Australia for a couple of years with the borders shut during covid, there's a massive rental crisis, housing and mortgage costs growing, food expensive as well. Same problems, different country. The wages are more so that may help but for me I'm a single income earner in healthcare, I'm skint in both countries so may as well enjoy NZ where I prefer.
I do have more chance buying a house again in NZ as there is no stamp duty. That was a killer in Oz.

even as an Aussie I can't stand the heat. Much prefer the weather in Canterbury.
Good luck with whatever you do, many people have made the jump to Oz and loved it.

Moses2013

But how do you put things into context? People in NZ always want the same house in the capital for the price they see elsewhere, in reality that never happens anywhere. If you could say what you are looking for, maybe people could give suggestions.