[Debs]

Hi there
Can anyone reccommend or advise - all things to plan we should be arriving in Wellington at the end of May - we have 2 young children and I'll be 7 months pregnant - can anyone share their experience of the best way to sort out a rental ?

Should we arrange a hotel for a certain amount of time - if so, which would you reccomend in central Wellington ? (Family freindly and not too pricey !)
Also, as we have baby number three due a matter of weeks after we arrive - we want to be settled in a rental - how long does it take to get one ? And can we do it before we leave the UK to save on hotel costs ?????


Help!!!
Any reccommendations would be much appreciated!

[mclarity]

We managed to secure a rental property prior to our departure for NZ. We used an estate agent in the Hutt valley but if you want to be in Wellington proper then you can try www.redcoats.co.nz. You can subscribe to their Rental Property mailing list by contacting them directly. The list gets sent periodically via email.

A word of advice, if you have someone in Wellington that can check out the properties for you ahead of time then so much the better. Some listed properties can be quite dodgy in terms of quality of accommodation and the listed photos (on their website) do not necessarily reflect the reality. We were lucky enough to have someone look on our behalf.

You will usually need to pay the following in advance:

3 weeks rent as bond
2 weeks rent in advance
Letting fee (1 week rent plus GST)

Hope this helps.
All the best.

[jess]

Some listed properties can be quite dodgy in terms of quality of accommodation and the listed photos (on their website) do not necessarily reflect the reality. We were lucky enough to have someone look on our behalf. This is quite true! I'd be afraid to rent without a visit unless someone could look at the place for me (though some people have done it successfully). Not for the faint hearted!!

We booked a hotel for 10 days (backpackers - they take kids, but it's not quiet so I won't bother with details) and looked at rentals - and areas - right away. The Wed. and Sat. Dominion Post are great. Along with agency ads they inlcude a lot of private listings, and often private landlords are willing to offer a flexible tenancy (if that's a plus for you). We also visited agencies like Quinovic that let us look through their book of photos, and some of the houses in it had not been advertised yet - a big bonus. If we liked one in the book, or if we called another agency about liking one in the paper or on Trademe, they would tell us to go drive by the outside and then call them back if we wanted to view inside. This doubled our driving around time (on the left for the first time for us and with map clutched in hand), and rentals go quickly anywhere near the CBD, so we were tempted to say, "we've seen the outside, we'd like a look in" straight off.

If you see something you really do like, I would jump on it before it's gone. If you end up further out of the city (as we did) then this will nto be as big of a deal.

Get a mobile phone as soon as possible. All the agents want a number where they can call you back, and the hotel's not helpful when you're hardly in it. Otherwise if the rental you're going to see has been let overnight (not unusual) you will wait at the appointed time and the agent won't show up.

(Oh also - when booking a hotel in the CBD (central business district), consider whether they have parking, because if they don't it can cost you $20 a night in a parking deck.)

Best of luck with your move! :)

[starkhorn]

We stayed with this company on Leeds Street for our first 3 weeks in NZ. We don't have a family but it's central, clean but we found it a little cold and damp but they provide heaters, etc. The great thing is that they provide nearly every household device required. It's definitely not the Ritz but it's fine for a few weeks until you get settled.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Starkhorn

http://www.whatsnew.co.nz/

[KD17]

Hi Debs

We found a Bach holiday home in a place called Korokoro, which is about 20 mins drive from the centre of Wellington. I can send you pics of the place we stayed in if you would like to PM me.

Below is a link to various Bach's - holiday homes around NZ.

http://www.holidayhouses.co.nz/regions.asp

There are lots of Bach properties about and we were more than happy with the one we stayed in, which we had for a couple of weeks. It had two bedrooms, one with a double bed and one with a double and single bed, so could sleep up to 5. It was very clean and came with everything you need, i.e. washing machine..! The owner even left us a bottle of wine on the table as a "Welcome to New Zealand" gift. :)

For our first night we stayed in the Jame Cook Hotel, we found an excellent rate though www.wotif.com site (link below) on this you can also find apartments to rent for a short period of time.

http://www.wotif.com/search/Simple?refine=simpleSearch&country=2&region=2197&viewType=all

As for a rental, we gave ourselves just the two weeks to find something, and even though we managed to do this, we were exceptionally fortunate. I was quite disappointed at what was on offer to be honest, not having unlimited funds to spare, but 4 weeks in I think part of that was my perception as to how people live here, they don't seem to have the "Englishmans home is his castle" attitude from what I can see. We also discovered that rentals get snapped up very, very quickly, so what you see today could well be gone tomorrow. Also - be careful when you look at properties, we found a really lovely house, right location, right price, we drove by and the old tenants were cleaning up ready to move out. We had a chat with them and they told us that it was so damp that they couldn't even put their furniture against the wall... so looks can be very deceptive in every which way.

We found the rental we are in through the real estate section of trademe.co.nz. which can also be private landlords which will save you the admin fee of the estate agent.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-me-property/index.htm

I don't know if you are planning on hiring a car. We hired one for a month (due to return it this Tuesday) and I've just hired myself one for a month too from a company called DCR (Darn Cheap Rentals) we got these for $20 per day, after a bit of haggling. They delivered it to the hotel we were in.

Definately agree to the advice to get a Pay as you Go mobile phone asap, and would recommend Vodafone simply because you can put the sim card into your existing mobile, and off you go. You can always make an informed decision what mobile company you want to go with later.

Don't hesitate to PM me if you would like to know anything else at all. We've been here 4 weeks now and are staying about 40 mins outside Wellington. We totally love it here and I hope you do to.

Good Luck


Debby & Keith

[gpbenton]

One thing you might consider for when you arrive is a 'serviced apartment'. These are like hotels in that someone cleans the room every day, but typically have some cooking facilities (microwaves, hot plates and toasters), fridges and washing machines. You can book them for a few days at a time.

Quest http://www.questapartments.com.au/ have a few such facilities in Wellington, but there are plenty of others - just google for them.

I stayed at Quest on Johnston, and there were families staying there at the time.

[Debs]

Wow,
Thank you all for your replies - really useful stuff. Seems so much to think about !!!
Cheers for the help - am sure I'll be back on again soon to get more advise !!