[Angelonthemove]

Hi All

Wanted to know what you all did re housing when you first got here?
Hotel
Motel
Short term rental
straight into rental
other

Reason I ask is I had this brainwave (not that big) that we are buying this house and if we extend as we want to with new lounge, master bedroom ensuite etc plus change a bedroom into a new kitchen. We coud keep original house almost as is.

The idea is to rent short term to new immigrants coming over with 2 bedroom, bathroom and kitchen/lounge, fully furnished. Plus added bonus of dog/cat run. Would take weekly bookings until people had found there feet. Gaps in between so no overlapping.

Not wanting to rent out full time, so this would be ideal to get a small income for extension. Its 15 mins from CBD Wellington. Fantastic views and next to rural walk area.

So trying to do homework before going ahead with it, woud change desing slightly.

We spent 3 weeks in a hotel, not much fun as we could not find a rental we liked that quick. Plus then another 4 weeks with no furniture. cost so much money when we could have done without

I also had an idea for furniture/TV/DVD/basic kitchen wear/bedding lending service as I now have so much. Thats if we do not need for rental.

If anyone in Wellington wants to borrow mattresses/TV/DVD/kitchenware etc PM I have so much stuff. Great until your stuff arrives. Not charging just being neighbourly. Lent it to our new Brazilian friends until they got their own furniture.

Full of ideas but no job offer yet:roll Just emailing CV out to temping agencies.

Angela

[sizzlingbadger]

Sounds like a good idea. We stayed in a hotel for 3 days, with 3 kids and us in one room we nearly strangled each other by the time we got to the rental :D

We said if we had stayed in Wellington we would have looked for a place that had this set up. As you're quite close to Wellington it would be an ideal start for people moving countries. If you can afford to undercut the hotels/motels/apartments just slightly I think it woud definitely be appealing.

Go for it and good luck on the job front :)

[jubjub]

Hubby had one night in a hotel room, then went into a rental, we had arranged a couple of viewings prior to landing and he accepted one of them.

I think your idea is fabulous, and I did see on another forum that there is someone in Auckland doing the similar thing with a converted double garage I think it was. Just wish I could remember where it was so I could show you their post.....

Good luck with the job hunt too.

[jubjub]

Found a post about that rental, sent you a pm...

[stu70]

A great idea Angela, wish you the best with it.
Regards

[Pip]

We stayed with someone who does something similar to what you are suggesting, but in Christchurch. Its a two bed flat, on their property in rural christchurch,thats fully furnished with bedding, cutlery, towels, washing machine etc. They built it a couple of years ago and its been pretty much fully booked since day one, which suggests that there is a demand for this type of thing. We took it because they allow cats and dogs and having met many of the previous tenants (mainly immigrants from the UK who were waiting for their shipping container - including several from this forum), that was the main selling point.

We've even chewed over the idea of doing something similar ourselves, but at a later date, as would need to be a separate building/planning permission etc..so we'd need to do some serious thinking and we're not in that position right now - but there's certainly seems to be a demand for it...

Best of luck!

[Sam B]

The ministry (see how I spelled that right) Education paid for us to stay in a motel for 2 weeks, so we did, even though we had already got a rental waiting for us. I couldn't bear to let that generous offer go to waste! I booked us a motel that was like a little house with our own lounge, kitchen, 2 bedrooms and bathroom, I hate sharing a room with the kids, one of them snores. I think it's a great idea. Good luck with it.

[lockstock]

Sounds like a good idea to me - especially the dog run. Let me know if it's vacant around february. Sam B how did the Min of Ed get to pay your rental? Did you get a relocation package?

[Sam B]

Yes, they paid airfares for the whole family, $3000 expenses, 2 weeks motel and 2 weeks car hire. This is the standard package I think.

[Marie P]

We stayed with a friend ........was supposed to be for a few days , turned into 3 weeks ,finding a decent rental was tough .
The place we settled on was a brand new ,never been lived in house {wasn't in a very good area} .
Thought this would be temporary whilst we found a place to buy ,but turned out we rented for a whole year as we had a house built instead.
So we managed for 3 weeks till our container arrived.

Great idea to have a place for newbies to find their feet :nice1

Marie x

[movefromus]

I'd check into the laws on that first before buying a house with that in mind. My mother (who lives in Auckland) was just telling me that they have some odd laws about adding extra kitchens onto houses (if you're wanting to rent out a section of the house).
Carly

[Angelonthemove]

All just an idea at the moment we move in 2 weeks time. Got to save some money if we intend to do this and then approach mortgage company. Will get professional drawing made up and then submit to council first. But I will look into laws re extra kitchens etc.

thanx for all your advise and PM's and will keep you posted

[Debbie]

We stayed in a bach that we rented short term.
We have looked into doing similar but with a separate property. As already stated in Auckland, if you add a second kitchen they consider it to be 2 properties then you have all the legal issues over sub sections, double resource use and rates, maintaining the legal minimum living areas ect. We looked into converting a place into 2 for both sets of parents, (they would need their own kitchens for their sanity) and came up against all this red tape. If you find that it is different elsewhere in the country let me know please.
Debbie

[wanderingoregonian]

We rented a fully furnished house (while the owners were away overseas). It was a brillant way to start, particularly since the rental market was a little slow when we came (xmas time). I made such a difference to hit the ground with sheets, dishes, full kitchen, food in pantry... we were more or less set (with great thanks to TriGirl for passing on her kettle etc. to us) by the time we found our current rental. We're just starting out, so owning a house is not really an option for us yet, but having a taste of a real house was lovely and really helped us focus on the other things - like starting work 2 days after I arrived.

SamB - wow, what a package for moving here! Maybe I should have looked into GSE, then again I love my current job... Others may have higher expectation, but coming from education/health sector in america where I often bought my own airfares to conferences, my own printer (that I carried with me to sites), my own equipment/books, etc the thought of relocation funds is something i never even thought to consider let alone ask about!

[beano_bill]

Hi Angela,

This is a cracking idea, we stayed in a hostel for 17 days...or 24 - can't remember really :o ...anyway, it served a purpose. We did want to rent a house but as we didn't want to buy anything that would change the criteria for our house we've ended up sharing......which is fun ;)

furniture/TV/DVD/basic kitchen wear/bedding lending service

This would have made our life so much easier - as it is we've had to buy a bed - whilst we wait for our stuff to arrive.

Do check the legal side of things though (sure you would though), it'd be awful to have such a wonderful idea stumped by a technicality.

Beano

[Angelonthemove]

OH has a friend who has a granny annex so I will ask because I saw the kitchen in it. Let you know.

[hball]

The rules for secondary/minor dwellings are different for each local authority but generally the options are governed by the amount of land you have. General rule of thumb here in Auckland for most residential zones is each dwelling must have minimum 400m2. So if you have a house currently sitting on say 840m2 in theory you can erect two dwellings - but there are other compliancy issues to be checked out first as well as the viability of sub-division. Minor dwellings/household units (houses of less than a given m2, usually between 60 and 80m2) may be allowed but cannot be on sold as a seperate dwelling as they have no independent legal title.

Adding an extra kitchen to an existing house is generally a no-no.

Re. fully furnished rentals - ours in Howick is completely and utterly fully furnished, even down to decorative candles and Kiwi artwork, surround sound TV in the living room, another TV in the main bedroom, etc. - so they are out there. (We even include loo roll and spare light bulbs!!!)

[migratory birds]

My daughter and I (and possibly our 2 cats) are planning on moving within the year and the idea of landing and staying in a hotel or hostel while we look for more permanant housing is very unsettling! The thought of landing in a home-like setting for a few weeks (or even 2-3 mos) while looking for the right place would lift a heavy burden off my shoulders.

Pip - can you pass along contact info for the family in ChCh who rents their flat short-term? Staying near a family with kids would make for an easier transition for my 9 yr old (I think you said they had kids).

Wandering Oregonian - how did you find the family that was away overseas?

Someone sugg'd the other day that I swap houses with someone from NZ wanting to come to this part of the US. There is an organization, possibly several, that arranges house exchanges all over the world (not necessarily a direct one-to-one swap). That may be another way to go if we don't sell up before moving.

If anyone else has short-term housing leads they can share, I'd appreciate it! I'm a non-smoker and we're both quiet, respectful, responsible, easy-to-be-around people. Likely headed to the S Island but N Island leads welcome!
________________________________
Passports in the issuing queue in London now awaiting PR blue stickers...

[JoanneG]

I think that's a brilliant idea Angel. We would struggle in a hotel with 4 kids and I really don't like them sleeping in a seperate room in a hotel but we'd be happy to squish ourselves across 2 beds for a short while.

Dog run could be handy for the little ones. :laugh

So much more welcoming than a hotel too.

In fact, PM me if you get somewhere soon as I have a friend coming over without his family for a recce who might need somewhere to stay.

Good Luck

[wanderingoregonian]

The first house we almost had lined up I saw on trademe. They wanted someone for 2 months. I wasn't able to email them directly because of the trademe registration rules, but they had enough information in their post that I could mail them a letter (with a couple photos). They offered us the place, but the timing didn't work out when our visa was delayed.

The house we ended up in was a friend of my bosses... not a likely path for many, but it shows that it pays to ask the contacts you do have in if they know anyone who needs a house sitter. The social networks here can be quite large, so even aksing 1-2 people if they know anyone who has a house let coming up, could be the same as asking 40 people back in the states! We paid rent while we stayed there, but a bit below market. We felt very very lucky to be connected with such a great situation. Our bosses picked us at the airport and dropped us off at their friends house, with a lovely bed to instantly fall asleep in and a semi-stocked kitchen to make a meal when we woke.

[Kim39]

Arrived and stayed with friends for 10 days in Waikato before moving onto stay with other friends elsewhere on NI for another 10 days, and this gave us a chance to look at two completely different regions and make a few decisions as job offer involved us moving to one of the regions. Whilst staying with latter we made a decision to move back to Waikato, so stayed with our friends for another 3 weeks before moving into rental 6 weeks after arriving.


Kim

[Pip]

[QUOTE=migratory birds;132596]
Pip - can you pass along contact info for the family in ChCh who rents their flat short-term? Staying near a family with kids would make for an easier transition for my 9 yr old (I think you said they had kids).


We stayed in the Olive loft, which is a rental apartment about 25 mins outside of Christchurch. see: http://www.holidayhouses.co.nz/properties/4562.asp

It has pretty much everything you need, linen, towels, cutlery, cooking utensils etc and we managed there for ten weeks (we booked for 4!) with just the contents of our suitcases. David and Jackie are wonderful hosts and live in the main house and are happy to help with whatever you need. (even showing us how to use a ride on lawn mower once we'd moved into our new place, or helping Olivia from this forum plumb in her washing machine in her new house - another ex Olive Loft tenant!) and Olive our cat was very welcome..

You can normally negotiate a weekly/monthly rent, depending on how long you want to stay and its great as it includes all bills. (now we have to pay rates, phone, electricity - I realise how good this was!)

its set in Olive groves, so very peaceful..my only thoughts might be, not sure how warm it would be in winter, we arrived in March in fantastic sunshine and enjoyed sitting on the deck with a glass of wine admiring the mountains, but when we moved out in may, it was getting a tad chilly - but I am a soft southerner! Great for kids who want to run around/ride bikes, but poss not so great for teenagers who would find it the equivalent of being in rural devon. David & Jackie's kids are grown up and in fact, now have very young children of their own, so its a family atmosphere - but there aren't other kids to play with.

Feel free to pm me if you have any more questions..! Hope that helps some of you...

[Angelonthemove]

It appears its a local council issue as to whether you can divide a huse 2 kitchen, seperate dwelling on one land.

Here in Wellington friends x 3 have all divided added extra kitchen and added granny flats with kitchen, with council approval and no extra rates.

So worth asking individual councils.

thanks for all your advise busy packing today move a week friday.

[hball]

Sounds a much better deal in Wellington. I think the issue for the Auckland councils is multiple families in one dwelling over stretching the services and infrastructure. Even so it is really common to have three generations and other family members all living in one house here - where do they put everyone! - so no doubt the official line is that if additional kitchen facilities were allowed in that same house there may be even more people squeezed in!!!!!

I like the sound of no additional rates for a minor dwelling too. Again no such luck here as the moment you build your minor dwelling you are liable for additional rates as you have increased the value of your property overall.

For what it is worth, a kitchen is determined as having a permanent cooking appliance ie a cooker (!). However, remove the cooker, add a microwave, on-bench electric grill etc and that's not a kitchen to most authorities. You can even have a sink and dishwasher and it's still not a kitchen!

[Shones]

Hi Angela, we found some tenants to rent our house here before our trip to NZ/Oz who wanted to move in 6 weeks before we fly out. We've moved into some furnished flats designed for executives and I just wanted to say how restful it has been to move into somewhere with sheets, all kitchen wear (potato peelers etc), SKY TV and wireless internet. We're staying in a University furnished house in Christchurch when we arrive, but would definitely have been interested in a fully furnished flat, and particularly one rented by someone who's been through the emigration process, can offer good advice and moral support:- I'd be happy to pay a bit more for that, so I'm sure your idea would be a great success. GOOD LUCK. Shona

[uk_munros]

Anyone with suggestions for a family of 5 (2 Adults and 3 kids) coming to Nelson? We need somewhere for 3 months I am guessing. Pref fully furnished

[Angelonthemove]

Just to let people know its all changed, we now think we can put a drive way up our 115 steps but will cost $70k. Plus take one year to go through plans of subdividing to put another property on etc. Now we have found out the land next to us is vacant and they ca not get access but we maybe could. All too many things to consider. So for all you people who thought I had the perfect place for you to stay I'm sorry its all on hold for along while.