Would love to hear peoples experiences and any tips

Hi

Congrats on the job!!  I started with a company in Christchurch in August 2015, and it is wonderful.  Christchurch is a great place to be.  It is not as busy as Auckland (really toned down), but you have all the facilities you need.   Great quality of life - especially for families.   The only expensive thing is accommodation.  With the earthquake repairs, rentals are in demand and therefor quite expensive.  It is coming down though, as contractors are finishing up and leaving, and people moving back into their repaired homes.  You will easily find rental accommodation once you are here.  Just look on Trademe.co.nz  and contact some rental agencies (Harcourts etc.).  Rental for a decent 3 bedroom house is around NZ$460-485/week.  You can get cheaper but not so nice areas.  Average price to buy a 3 bedroom house is around NZ$450k to 495k.  that is basic one bathroom configuration.  Once again check Trademe.co.nz.  This will give you a good idea.   You can get cheaper, that needs some work.

If you bringing your furniture, make sure it is pretty clean.  No soil, dust or pet hair.  Especially camping, gardening and/or other outdoor stuff.  They are pretty strict about that, understandably so.
We brought some of our furniture and actually wish we did not.  Can get everything here and at reasonable prices.

Other than that it is a very easy city to settle into.  People are friendly and very helpful.  Just make yourself part of the community.  Do not sit at home and wait for things to happen. But also - always show respect as an immigrant.  Everything else e.g. getting your driver licence sorted, shopping, getting around  etc.  is pretty easy.

Hope this helps!

All the best and you made a good decision.

John

Hi John,
Apologies for the delay in replying. Been a hectic week with other interviews, to to my amazement / delight I've been offered another job, so got a difficult decision to make between the two now.

I've spoken with a few people and companies in Auckland and Christchurch and definitely been sold on the people and destination of Christchurch. One of the Directors that interviewed me (more than likely the job I'm going to take) has been amazing and it never flaunted his rank like people tend to over here and was so easy to talk to. In fact everyone I've spoke to from Christchurch has been easy to talk to (on average half the time of my interviews has been general chats with no relation to work).

Housing is one of our main concerns (especially insulation of them) so thats really good to hear that there's more options now. We'll be renting for the first year or two then hopefully buying if it all works out well. We're planning on shipping our newer furniture such as the settees and washing machine, but leaving quitea bit behind. We were warned by the removal company to make sure everything smells of bleach and is nice and clean, so looking forward to that task.

My wifes not going to work for the first year and just look after our son, so would say the pressures more on here to settle. But she's a really outgoing and social person so know she won't be stuck at home all day and will actively seek clubs etc.

The only thing now thats holding us back is the visa, so fingers crossed that goes through without a problem. Can't wait to get out there now. Not long to go.

Thanks for all your advice.
Allan

Hello there shaggy07,

Welcome on board 

A new thread has been created from your post on the New Zealand forum so that you may better interact with members.

Best of luck,
Bhavna