where to live in New Zealand

[sailaway21]

Does that mean that Kiwi's are more serious minded about their bestiality than Aussies? (g)

sorry, couldn't stop my fingers. I hate it when that happens.

[MidLandOne]

Oh my god, it seems that we have an Aucklander in our midst. We will never hear the end of the place now .

Originally Posted by chris_gee

Median house prices

The figure I gave was taken across the industry and I stand by it. Of course the figure can be refined if only selected parts of the city or one player in the market are taken, but such can be done anywhere. But in the end it is only important to those who may wish to live in Auckland which I calculate to be approximately only around 0.0002% of the world population. So, in fact of very little importance at all .

Originally Posted by chris_gee

It is misleading to compare Auckland harbour with Wellington harbour.

So it might be, but you were the one that claimed Auckland Harbour was bigger, not me. Wellington Harbour, and unfortunately for Auckland, many other harbours of the world, including Sydneys are bigger than Aucklands. I did say the Hauraki Gulf lies right outside it.

Originally Posted by chris_gee

This is reflected in the Auckland yacht fleet being vastly greater than the Wellington one. My guess would be 20x.

Hey, who has claimed Wellington has a bigger fleet . But if you want to get into numbers then on a marina berth to head of population basis the town with the highest moored boat concentration in NZ is probably Picton in the South Island with more than 600 marina berths for a population of 4,000 odd, so around one berth per 7 people. Nelson, again, in the South Island has approximately 500 berths for 45,000 population ie 1 berth per 90 head population. Neither of which Auckland can match by far . Now that is a surprise because those places are a long way south of the Bombay Hills (in house joke which perhaps only NZ'ers and many Sydneyites would understand ) and in fact not even in the "right" island . And to top it all off Nelson is far, like real far, sunnier than Auckland .

Of the countries I have been in the world the highest number of permanent moorings per head of population I have come across is Bermuda where there are over 5,000 of them which comes out at close to one per 10 persons so I'm afraid Auckland, and indeed NZ, is in children's territory in that game.

But in the end we all concede, for the sake of peace and quiet, that Auckland does have the biggest harbour in the world, the best sailing in the world, the loveliest buoys in the harbour to race around, the prettiest girls and the handsomest men, the best climate in the world; in fact to cut the list short Auckland has the best of everything compared to anywhere else in the world and out does Sydney by far .

It is claimed that Auckland might also have the highest proportion of inhabitants with just one eye of any city in the world too (well, of course, I exaggerate, but at least the highest proportion compared to any other city in the world I've been to, and I've been to more than a few) .

I do agree though that Australians are real beasts, especially those Sydneyites .

Rolling on the floor laughing myself - one tries to give a balanced view of the place only claiming what has attracted us personally (and making that very clear) and providing some information, and a Jafa (sorry, another in house joke) jumps up defending Auckland. Fool that I am I should have seen it coming .

[Omatako]

Originally Posted by sailaway21

Omatako,
Sounds like my statements weren't quite so "sweeping" after all. New Zealand does seem to have some tough immigration laws after all. Of course that is by way of differentiating it from the US which seems to have no law at all. (g)

Hee hee, I guess it depends what you're comparing with. Remember we came from South Africa, hardly an ideal place to live out your life. As a quick background, I am an auto mechanic from way back who has to get my car fixed by someone else who actually knows how. My wife is a self-taught accountant. So we're hardly the cutting edge of modern science . We had no trouble getting into NZ and when we arrived I was 54 years old and my wife was 52 so budding youth was also not on our side.

What has happened since then and as a direct result of us coming here is a little embarrassing. Bear with me:

- After us, life-long friends of ours with a daughter came, their son is still coming but already has permanant residence (the dad's an MBA manager of sorts)
- Then our daughter and her husband came (network engineer)
- His cousin, her husband and two kids came (project manager)
- The cousin's brother, his wife and two kids came (toolmaker)
- The third cousin with wife and two kids and a chronic diabetic problem came (sales and marketing).
- My daugher's close friend and his wife came (highly skilled SAP engineer)
- My daughter's parents-in-law came (retired with some money but far from rich)
- The young girl who crewed with us from the US has no qualifications, zip, nothing. She has a job and is staying
- The fourth cousin is coming in two weeks
- Their widowed mother is on her way nor far behind.

As I said, embarrassing . And if you think I'm bull-sh&^%$ing you, I'll get each of these people to send you a personal e-mail from their NZ ISP.

All of this took place between Jan 2003 and now. And as you can see, this isn't the holy grail of skills we're dealing with. We're just ordinary folk. And, incidentally, other than me, not one of these people made any prior plans, they arrived here on holiday visas, applied to stay and did. All of them have got or have been approved for permanent residence.

This hardly represents a difficult immigration process.

Idiens, all I can say is I don't know what you did to piss them off but getting in here is really easy.

And Sway, maybe not that sweeping but IMHO a little off the mark if I may be so bold

On the flip side, when I went to the US to fetch my boat, the hoops I had to jump through to get a visa had me believing my wife should be wearing a burka

Whatever your opinion, we're here to stay and we are living well. I can't recommend it to you because I don't know what you have now, it may be better. But do yourself a favour, if you have an interest, at least come and have a look.

Andre

[MidLandOne]

But there again Andre, South Africans are held in high regard here .

Some years back, and things have only got easier since, I was recruiting for a specialist position rare in NZ and a South African touring the country on a visitor's permit applied. We had him hired and with a work permit in 2 days and permanent residence shortly after .

[Idiens]

Originally Posted by Omatako

...Idiens, all I can say is I don't know what you did to piss them off but getting in here is really easy. ...

It was not immigration that stopped me. The job I was angling for in Hamilton got "rationalised". Otherwise I would be there now. But I was on the end of the immigration points system for age (56) then, so needed a job offer and employer pull to get me a working visa. While angling there, I got a fun-job offer in Brussels. Now I'm on the retirement road and have set myself the target to sail my own boat into the Marlborough Sound.

[sailingdog]

Sailaway-

We have immigration laws... we just don't enforce any of them.

Originally Posted by sailaway21

Omatako,
Sounds like my statements weren't quite so "sweeping" after all. New Zealand does seem to have some tough immigration laws after all. Of course that is by way of differentiating it from the US which seems to have no law at all. (g)

[chris_gee]

Well I guess I forgot to mention a certain irrational hysteria that creeps into the more parochial about Aucklanders.

In fact I did not defend Auckland, nor suggest that it was superior to Wellington or anywhere else in NZ or the world. Rather I tried to give a balanced response to the question asked and point out some relevant factors possibly not known to the original poster.

For someone looking for advice on where to live to combine a high tech computer job with sailing, then Auckland and Wellington are really the major choices. Wellington has the Government head offices and many corporate, whereas Auckland would have more businesses.

While technically correct the pedantry of comparing harbour sizes could have been avoided had I said Wellington Harbour provides smaller cruising or sailing grounds than the readily accessible Hauraki Gulf and Firth of Thames. Few people would be able to define the limits of Auckland Harbour as such without reference to a chart.

Picton may have more boats per capita than Auckland, probably in part because many Wellingtonians and others keep their boats there. One may feel the 3 hour ferry trip and $73 single fare (specials apply) would be a disincentive to casual weekend sailing and this is a point to consider in comparing access to sailing in the two cities.

As to housing, as noted there are difficulties comparing means, medians and market composition at varying times. The difference between the figures cited is that one is an average of houses within the Auckland metropolitan area, and the other the median of the “dwellings” namely houses units and apartments within the wider area of the Auckland province which includes Rodney Franklin and Thames Coromandel. As these areas would give a commuting time of approximately 1.5 – 2.5 hours they are not really relevant.

[tdw]

Hot Damn, and here's me thinking the Melbourne v Sydney v Brisbane battle can get a bit nasty.

Friends of ours have just built themselves a house on the Corromandel (sp?) Peninsular. I've only seen the pics thus far but wow, that is some very fine real estate. Can't wait to pay them a visit. (oh yes, they bought the land while working in NZ for the last America's Cup held in NZ. Think they made a good investment ? )

For me, Auckland is just another Sydney. Someone once said that if Sydney had restricted its population to under two million it would be the best city on earth. I cannot disagree. I fear Auckland is going through the same trauma. In Sydney we have too many people for the infrastructure to cope with and its never going to get any better. Its why I want out.

Nonetheless is employment is the main criterion then it would have to be Auckland but don't completely disregard Wellington.

Oh yes, and just to clinch the deal NZ has fantastic wine and some of the freshest tastiest produce you can get anywhere.

[MidLandOne]

Don't be a silly wombat Wombat - how can Auckland be compared to Sydney .

Auckland (and all other NZ cities too, just to keep the baying Aucklanders at bay ) is just yet another smallish city among many thousands in the world scheme of things whereas Sydney really is recognised as a world class city. Auckland hasn't even got a decent looking harbour bridge and someone missed an opporunity there (and just to keep the Aucklanders at bay, I am the first to concede that no other NZ city has a harbour bridge at all) although I anticipate we will soon learn some aspect of it that makes it unique in the world .

Whether one wants to live in a world class city or not is another matter I guess. But all of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane outclass any city in NZ from the being a city point of view as well as far as many other attractions too. Well, that is just in my opinion and not really sure which I would pick to live in although it is something we have pondered over.

I am told that Adelaide is quite a nice place to live from the sailing point of view but not so good from the work point of view? Don't know myself as have never been there.

Hobart reminds me alot of a low rainfall Dunedin and nearly as cold as Dunedin in winter but is warm by NZ standards in every other season. Alot of Australian "mainland" people seem to be keen to buy property there so they must find some attraction to it.

When I get asked by prospective immigrants which of Australia or NZ I would recommend my answer has always to be Australia unless there is some specific attraction in NZ that they particularly want. About the only downside I see is that an awful lot of it is flat and brown else is scrub/eucalypts/acacias. In the end, the 30,000 odd or whatever it is NZ'ers that head there to live each year can't be wrong .

[Omatako]

[quote=chris_gee;250609]Picton may have more boats per capita than Auckland, probably in part because many Wellingtonians and others keep their boats there. quote]

Hear, hear. Even people as far south as Christchurch make a regular sojourn up to their boats in Picton because the cruising at home is really pretty average. Many of the boats in Picton have owners living somewhere else.

As far as Marlbourough sounds being a good place to cruise for Wellingtonians, unless your boat lives in Picton it's not practicle, too far, too rough. And whilst not boosting Auckland as a cruising ground, the Hauraki Gulf is ten minutes from any of the marinas in and around the city.

As far as Aus goes, when we came to NZ the age cut-off was 55 years, I believe Aus is now 45? And when going to Aus, the government pretty much decides where you're going to live (that may have changed). My sister immigrated there 10 years ago and when she said they wanted to live in Sydney, they were told "You don't like Melbourne? Stay where you are". Their immigration permits were conditional on them living in Melbourne where they still are today.

Andre