[stephenandjulie]

I have just had an interview for christchurch and have been looking for property. Does anyone know any areas in Christchurch we should avoid?

[ellenmelon]

well...
i wouldnt personally live in places like aranui or bromley.hoon hay and halswell always struck me as a bit crap too.parts of sydenham are a bit rough, as are parts of southshore and new brighton.

[ElizabethD]

I checked out Christchurch for one month. I followed the list that is somewhere on this forum (good vs bad areas) It is all so subjective.
If I'd have stayed I would have lived in Heathcote Valley, Cashmere Sumner or Lyttleton. Everyone spoke about Fendleton and Ilam but they did nothing for me. In the end I moved up to Wellington for work.

The people in Christchurch are some of the friendliest in New Zealand.

[tick tock]

We bought a house in Merivale and love it. I walk to the village shops and the trendy cafes. The schools are great and its 7 mins to the office down town

[SharpBlade]

well, it s all subjective ,it depends on what you like, but St Martins, parts of Opawa and maybe lower Cashmere are great. We are in St Martins, not far from the hills,just by the river, close to town but doesn`t feel like town at all. But again, everybody is different. I don`t really like any other areas (well, they are ok but I wouldn`t live there), I think the big factor fr us is being close to the hills.
Good luck, Laura

[nippa&pippa]

It depend on your choice of lifestyles and what you like about the areas, as ellenmelon pointed out she didn't like halswell, but i thought some part of halwells is nice areas!
Get rent car and arrive around all christchurch till you find the one that suit you. I am exploring outskirt of chch at the moment...still niggling till find the right areas suit us and young children to buy our first house in NZ.

[ellenmelon]

It depend on your choice of lifestyles and what you like about the areas, as ellenmelon pointed out she didn't like halswell, but i thought some part of halwells is nice areas!
Get rent car and arrive around all christchurch till you find the one that suit you. I am exploring outskirt of chch at the moment...still niggling till find the right areas suit us and young children to buy our first house in NZ.

i totally agree with you. everyone has their preconceptions about a place..one mans pleasure is anothers poison so to speak.

the OP has to choose somewhere to live that they like for their own reasons,though outside info is always helpful as a starting point too.

[stephenandjulie]

Hi
Thankyou very much for all your comments. We appreciate all the information about the different suburbs and areas.
However, we perhaps should have worded our question better as what we wanted to know is if there are any 'rough' areas in Christchurch that we should avoid. I can't imagine there being many. if any at all.
Thanks again
Julie

[veronica]

the first post really answered that question aranui is a def one to avoid, think its HeyHey thats a big state housing area but would not be too worried about the beach ones, new brighton itself has a bit of a bad rep but not heard anything bad about southshore. Really you have to come and look and decide once you are here.

[westi]

We've just bought a house in New Brighton. We listened to all the bad rap, took a look for ourselves, loved what we saw and took the plunge. It's true there are some run down houses which have been ear marked for deveolpement in the future. We haven't experienced any problems, noise etc. and really enjoy being only one street back from a fab beach, with the estuary and forest behind us and having a shopping cente / cafes / beach front library within walking distance is great too.

As mentioned South Shore, just down the road is lovely & has some nice houses. it's further from shops but seems to have plenty of buses if you don't want to drive.
We rented in St Martins when we first arrived and it's a really nice base as it's really close to the city as well as being near the hills and river.