[vixxann]

Would be interested to see the average reply to this - my OH thinks we won't be renting for long when we arrive as its dead money etc etc but I'd rather make sure we held out for right house, right location etc before we bought...

[jen]

I'm so glad you thought of this, Vicki - I'm really curious, too. We've been here two and a half months and are in an apartment with a 6-month lease. . . before we moved the idea was that we'd rent for at least six months to figure which neighborhoods we liked, what the housing market was like, and learn the differences in the buying process between NZ & the US. And even to make sure we didn't want to turn around and move back after a year!

But we've been spending our Sunday afternoons looking at Open Homes and arranged for a couple of week-day showings and would already be willing to buy a house. So much for the over 6 month plan :roll I think it's partly because I would really like to have our own place where I can settle in & fully unpack (hard to settle here when we know it's temporary) and partly because we like several of the Welly suburbs enough to live in and after struggling to afford ANYTHING in the California housing market, the places in our price range are SO much better that we're finding lots of houses we like as well. We've gotten recommendations for a solicitor and home inspection company from helpful folks & have been tracking sales prices for preparation.

Sorry for rambling on, but this is what 1/2 my brain is thinking about most of the time nowdays (when I'm not checking for new listings from trademe property of course!) & look forward to the responses. I would be curious if any of you bought a house as soon as you moved or soon after and felt you should have waited longer?

Jen

[Kim39]

Afraid we're still renting after 16 months. Have bought a section though, and we are just waiting for police checks back from Uk before they will release the mortgage on it. Hope to start to build within the next few months.

Kim

[Sam B]

We moved here with the idea that we would rent for at least a year and then sell our house in the Uk if we were happy and buy here. However! I didn't bank on the fact that actually whether I am happy here will be very much influenced by not being in our own home and having our stuff around us. Now I want to sell our UK house after only 6 weeks, and feel terrible, as v nice family have only just moved in there .... yikes!! I don't like living in rented accommodation. Compared to many other rentals I've seen, it's a nice enough house, but it doesn't feel like home at all.

[sizzlingbadger]

Rented for 3 months. After renting for 5 months in the UK before we came out we were pretty fed up being in another rental so were on the look out for a property pretty quickly. Hated it being dead money and the fact you couldn't change anything to it and that even with our stuff in the rental in the UK it still didn't feel like home.

[wilson182]

We rented for two years, and that was generally the plan. We didnt sell the house in the Uk for the first year. That was basically just in case we didnt like/settle in NZ and needed to go back. I'm glad we did, because we would never have orginally thought of settling somewhere like Rangiora. Whereas, as soon as me moved into the rental here we felt at home. We were lucky too, the last rental we lived in allowed us to put up our pictures etc, it did feel a little more homely. However, after two years I was MORE than ready to have my own home again.

[Marie P]

We had to rent for 12 months ,as we bought our section in March but house wasnt finished till Dec .

Even though we had our stuff ,it was never home .Its wonderful to be in our own place now. The kids are able to make their rooms their own .

No more paying someone elses mortgage too :nice1

Marie x

[Trigirl]

we sold our house in the uk before coming over. plan was to rent for 6-12 months while we sussed out where we wanted to be in wellington. in the end we rented for about 4 weeks, then we saw the place we wanted to buy, then it took about 3 weeks for the purchase to go through. so in the end we only rented for 7 weeks and our container got delivered straight here so it worked out perfectly!

plus, like sam said, i didn't feel even remotely settled till i had a place of my own. just do it sam, you'll feel so much better.

[Jo Jo]

My boyfriend and I were planning to rent for a year and then buy. But when we were over in NZ we were advised to buy while we were still in the UK as it would be easier to get a mortgage while we were still earning our UK salaries and we could rent out the house until we get there. So we have bought a house already, and we're not due to go to NZ until September.

This option isn't for everyone, obviously - my boyfriend is a Kiwi, so although I have to apply for a partnership visa, we're pretty certain we will be able to go to NZ in September (and if I can't, he can!) If he wasn't a Kiwi, I'm not sure I would have done this, and I don't know how easy it would have been to organise. I had always planned to remortgage my flat in London to part-finance the property purchase in NZ, so I have just done that now rather than in 18 months' time.

[sarahw]

We had decided on 6 months since our house in the UK hadn't sold before we left - plus we'd really recommend you rent for a minimum period to get a feel for the areas. We do know people who have bought in haste and regretted it - house selling here isn't very cheap (although it is getting cheaper with more competition coming into the market). We wanted to live in Camborne but after just one night of staying in a motel there made us realise the traffic was too much & we would never want to live there. After 6 months of living where we chose to we knew all the good streets to buy on & the bad ones to avoid.

[Kim39]

To Dave and Caroline. Thank you;) ;) sorted.

Kim

[K&CS]

We were in our rental for 7 months, although we had our offer accepted on the house we're in now after just 4 months in the rental. The owner wanted a long completion so we went along with that. The last 3 months in our rental were quite frustrating, as we so desperately wanted to get into our new lovely home. I used to drive past the house all the time - the neighbours must have thought I was some sort of stalker!

I'm glad we rented first though - we probably would have bought something completely different if we'd bought during those first couple of months!

Kate x

PS we initially thought we'd rent for at least a year, but as others have said, the desire to get our own place was pretty strong!

[Moorf]

We thought we'd rent for quite some time, not ideal as it was money down the drain in our eyes, but in the end I was so desperate to have our stuff over and to have our own place again that we rented for just six months.

[wilson182]

Looks like we were the only ones who stuck it out for two years:p Don't need to tell you how nice it is to be in my own house now though.:clap

[jess]

Only 4 months. Didn't feel settled until we got our own home, because I knew the rental was only a short term place, but still very glad we rented first. Many of the things we thought we knew about where we wanted to live based on a reccy trip changed completely in those 4 months.

[Brijan]

we rented for about 4 months, this was because our house sale in the uk did'nt complete until we had been in NZ for 3 months, this was a good thing as it stopped us buying too quickly and gave us a chance to make a more informed choice:D

[wanderingoregonian]

the desire is there... but I don't see buying as a viable option for us for some time, not in welly at least, but we've never owned having lived in a series of really expensive cities and having done 6 years of uni in order to get my ave wage job...

sorry, this post caught me on a down night after looking online at real estate and realized that the entry level housing bar just keeps moving faster and further from us. with my husband not working, there's just no way on my little salary.... we joke that it would could opt to buy land far away from the city, buy a cheap plane and commute that way and just call all bad weather days sick days:)

[Caroline and Dave]

To Dave and Caroline. Thank you;) ;) sorted.

Kim No Problem:nice1

[marcia]

We will have been in the rental for 4 months by the time we move out into our new home. It was always our intention to buy quickly, we have never been ones for renting - dead money in our eyes.

[vixxann]

Thanks to everyone thats answered the poll - the results seem to show around 20 % are currently renting but 60% have bought house within first six months with the rest of folks falling in between other times. Your replies had a common streak too - most people were planning to rent for longer but found it more settled to be in their own home - however the initial renting period seems essential to decide (or rule out) on certain locations.

Thanks again to everyone - please continue to fill in poll if you have not already done so :D

[CAFCValley]

We had decided to rent for a period of up to 12 months. We sold our house in Croydon and had checked out areas prior to coming over (as I am a kiwi but living in UK for 17 yrs). My OH really liked Rodney area so we found a rental in Orewa and looked at open homes for a long time. We finally found a house in Red Beach but needed huge renovations much to our advantage so worked on that then moved it. Rented for 6 months and did not have a fixed term rental. We gave a months notice and its so nice to be in our own home again. Mind you we are still unpacking. Have been in NZ 9 mths now and our own home for 3 and a half mths. Our advise is to rent until you are sure of the area and street you'd like to live in. Tracey

[hball]

We rented for two years - had four different rentals in four different Auckland suburbs to see exactly where we wanted to live!
The experience (good and bad) made us realise there was definately a market for good quality, fully furnished, short term accommodation for people like us who wanted to live in a house rather than a motel, and so we invested in properties in good Auckland locations and formed our own company!!!

[Pip]

Oops...bit late to the party on this one, but never mind.

We intended to rent for six months and then buy, so we took a holiday home for our first month with then intention of looking for a six month rental in the first month and then in that six months, looking to buy.

Like the best made plans... after two or three weeks of solid weeks of exploring Christchurch and surrounding areas, we decided we really liked the area where we were staying (Ohoka/Rangiora) - this combined with the fact the people after us in holiday home cancelled, meant we could stay in our holiday home for an extra month, which gave us the incentive to start looking at buying rather than renting. We've been here two months and move into our own place next week...:clap

For us, the big factor was thinking that it would take us a few months to explore Christchurch and get a feel of the different areas, when actually it didn't take that long at all... I guess if we had been in Auckland, the outcome probably would have been different..

[Howie]

Oh this thread is so depressing :wah
I'm surprised that so many people are just renting "until" they can buy. I'm renting because I simply can't afford to buy. It's been a year so far and I don't see any way that I'm ever going to be able to buy in Auckland unless the housing market suddenly crashes. I make a good salary and am fortunate to be able to rent out a 3 bedroom house in a nice area. If I were to buy a house in Auckland my mortgage payments would be twice my current rent which I simply cannot afford.
Off to feel sorry for myself....:wah

[Cardy]

Hi we rented for a year until we found a house we could afford and that we liked . WE WANTED 4 BEDROOMS AND NEAR SCHOOL LOCATION SO IT TOOK A WHILE.

CARDY:roll

[Sam B]

3 months! Bought it today!

[jess]

3 months! Bought it today! Congrats!! :D

[holland]

Very interesting!!!!!! Maybe we are not mad buying this early arter all!!!!

J and G x

[benandclare]

We rented for 10 weeks but would have been less but for the guy we bought from was playing rugby for his team till they came unstuck against the French in Cardiff ;) ;)

PS he's still in the running to be all time capped prop

[Rabbit]

We have rented for the last 18 months - still in shall we stay or shall we go mode - various reasons, e.g. the job, isolation, financial, family, future issues, is it for ever, and is this what we want etc..