[suzer]

Just curious---only staying for about a year so don't want to buy housewares etc.

Suz

[willowshouse]

You might find that it makes more financial sense to get an unfurnished rental and buy some cheap stuff to go in it.

The type of letting where everything is included (knives and forks etc) is called an executive let and they are usually considerably more expensive than unfurnished.

You will find that some rental properties will have all the whiteware included already (W/M etc) and I've even seen a few that have the odd sofa thrown in. Last time we were here we went to see an unfurnished rental, liked it, mentioned that we had no furniture and the landlord offered to lend us sofas, beds, bedding .. all for no charge. Our rent was $400 p/w .. the ONLY executive let available was $625 p/w. Let me tell you, $225 p/w buys you a lot of stuff at The Warehouse! At the end of our 6 month stint when we were heading back home we had a garage sale and a lady who was setting up a city apartment bought the lot. :clap

My advice would be - don't restrict yourself to only looking at fully furnished places. See what turns up..

Dawn

[tecso]

We looked at fully furnished for a 2-year stay and decided to ship our stuff from the US instead.

I'm thrifty so I did a lot of research. Furnished apartments and houses seemed quite expensive. Just repurchasing everything at used prices - looking at trademe.co.nz - seemed better but still expensive to us.

Shipping the contents of a modest 1 bedroom turned out to be about $1700 US from California to Auckland, and now we have a wide choice of places to live. Plus, we do not have to spend time hunting for furniture and hauling it around in a car we won't have ;) We plan to sell it all on the way home to finance our return trip.

[suzer]

Yikes! We were hoping for a furnished place for no more than $800/month:( We will be there less than a year so to buy everything seems a waste.

[stu70]

Yikes! We were hoping for a furnished place for no more than $800/month:( We will be there less than a year so to buy everything seems a waste.

I have been checking rental places for a bit and to be honest, there seems to be very little at 800/month even unfurnished. This is something that puzzles me as a north american; you can get a half decent place for 800-1000 a month in most places here (with the exception of NYZ, San Fran type places I suppose)but rents are quite high in NZ again due to supply and demand probably. Good luck

[willowshouse]

It's easy to keep a eye on what rentals go for .. just look at trademe and nzherald classifieds. An 'average' (I hate that word!) price for a 1 bed apartment in Auckland would be $220 - $250 per week .. unfurnished but obviously prices will vary from area to area and depending on the style of the property. Do you have an area in mind?

stu70 .. the rents might seem expensive to you but if you worked out what that 1 bed unit would cost to buy with a mortgage rate of 8% it would seem like a bargain!

Dawn

[urban78]

I agree with Dawn, you just need to keep an eye on the good places when they are advertised and to shop around!

OH and I live in a fully furnished 1 bed apartment in Auckland CBD and pay $250/week. We also managed to get a parking space in a building just round the corner for $39 a week. OH sisters shopped around while we were still in the UK and visited a few places we had seen online. The only thing that was not in the apartment was a couch (we only had a 1 seater) we bought for cheap in a discounted furniture store. The apartment is perfect for us, it's not huge but much better than what we had in London and better value too.

We got our place from City Rentals (www.cityrentals.co.nz) who also advertise on Trademe. The only downside of some of these agencies is that they will charge you a non refundable agency fee when signing the contract :roll There are plenty of places in Auckland CBD to look out for, some better than others though :exit

Jen

It's easy to keep a eye on what rentals go for .. just look at trademe and nzherald classifieds. An 'average' (I hate that word!) price for a 1 bed apartment in Auckland would be $220 - $250 per week .. unfurnished but obviously prices will vary from area to area and depending on the style of the property. Do you have an area in mind?

stu70 .. the rents might seem expensive to you but if you worked out what that 1 bed unit would cost to buy with a mortgage rate of 8% it would seem like a bargain!

Dawn

[hball]

Rents for furnished rentals are also defined by the length of a tenancy - for example holiday lets usually are the most expensive - but you may only want the property for a week or two, so the landlord will take into account the additional overheads, cleaning, replacing fixtures/fittings, advertising, down-time, etc. Then there are motels and hotel apartments usually from $120 per night upwards, unless you intend to stay longer than say seven nights and in that case you would negotiate a special rate. But you are still in a hotel/motel situation, so not exactly 'at home'.

Third, there are fully furnished properties with a periodic tenancy which allows the tenant flexibility, but in so doing may involve downtime for the landlord. And lastly fixed term tenancies which offer the landlord some financial security and so may have a lower rate but the tenant is fixed into a contractual period of the landlords choosing, often six months or more.

Another point is the quality of the furnishings if you require 'fully furnished' - some landlords do furnish their homes from sources which are already second if not third hand, and this should reflect in the rent asked too.