[jshack52]

Hi

My name is Jessica and my husband has a job offer as a nurse in Auckland North Shore to start in January. The house move is due to complete the 5th November but not exchanged yet so fingers crossed it goes through on the day!
We are going to be putting in an expression of interest once the sale goes through, hopefully next week. Would love any advice anyone can give about how long we can expect the residency application to take from expression of interest and info about north shore. The job offer is in Takapuna but looks expensive so may have to rent somewhere else? Anyone suggest a nice place in north shore where can rent a 2 bed house/unit for about 350 per week?

Thanks

Jess

[mgbridges]

Hi Jess and welcome to the forum!

We (me, OH and 5.75yr old son) arrived on the North Shore earlier this year initially renting in Campbells Bay and have recently moved into our own place in Browns Bay. I don't know Takapuna too well but its one of the bigger suburbs on the Shore and should have pretty much every shop you could wish for plus some great cafes & restaurants. I'm fairly sure you'll be able to find something to rent that will suit you, which websites have you been looking at? We used Trade Me and Realestate.co.nz quite a bit to look for both rental and to purchase. Are you looking to rent furnished or unfurnished? We found it hard to find anything furnished so ended up going for unfurnished and renting what the furniture we needed until our container arrived.

We really love living on the Shore and there are regular buses up and down East Coast Road and Beach Road (two of the main roads that run north/south) so you could easily look at living somewhere beyond Takapuna. Try PMing Milliemoo who is a mine of information on finding good rentals at good prices! The beaches are close by (and there are several to choose from), its easy to get into the CBD, our son is loving his school, our neighbours are friendly... all in all I think you'll like it here!

Feel free to PM me with any specific questions.
Anneliese

[Familyofmonkeys]

We are also moving to North Shore very soon, after spending the last 6 months in a 'Kiwi' house, cold and damp in winter as no heating or insulation. What type of place are you wanting. If you want something modern I would try looking at Albany and some of the small newer developments in the surrounding area, as these newer houses have regs that require insulation. If you are more interested in a sea view, there are loads of properties available, but anything half decent goes fairly quickly so you would need to view it and make a decision quickly.

Normally it takes several months to go through whole process....if you want to get here in January, I suggest you get your EOI in very quickly and start getting your documents together now, especially the police checks as they can really hold you up....they take ages. You could provisionally book medicals on the assumption that youe EOI is selected, but they are only valid for 3 months, so leave getting them done for definite until you are in process of putting together your ITA. As you have a job offer, your application will be fast tracked, but they often cut it to the wire in terms of making a decision (it's quite nail biting stuff with all the waiting)....we heard from them a couple of days before my OH job was officially due to start, but luckily his employer were flexible. We booked flights as soon as we got the blue stickers in a passports and arrived in NZ 3 weeks later.

[Tattie]

Hi Jess,

welcome to the forum and good luck with the application.

To be honest I would put the Expression of Interest (EOI) in now! The pool is only done every 2 weeks. If successful - and you should be with a job offer - it can take up to a week to get the Invitation To Apply (ITA) application forms.

Then factor in upto 40 days for the Police checks, booking medicals and getting together all the other required paperwork you will be cutting it fine to be complete by Jan.

It's doable but you need to start sending off for the Police certificates now - cost a tenner each and applications are online at your local constabularys website. Not a CRB one. Lincolnshire was mega fast - we had them in 10 days.

Medical paperwork can take upto a week to come back too, plus they only seem to do the actual emigration medical on certain days. Cost for 2 in the midlands was around £750.

Once NZIS have all the paperwork, it can take them over a month to sort that all out, plus ask for any further clarification etc if needed.

We sent in our passports at the same time and mentioned that we needed them back in a hurry due to a holiday and I also needed them for an overseas work trip - not to NZ. Ours took 6 weeks from sending in the ITA to getting our passports back. We had a phone call at the 5 week point to say we had been granted PR

Hope this info helps you in your planning and again good luck!!

Tattie.

Arrive in Auckland 29 Dec 07

[Tia Maria]

Jessica,

You are probably based at the North Shore Hospital (where I had baby number 3). Its based on quite a busy couple of roads and not in central Takapuna, so you would probably find you would be driving (or bus) anyway.

Rentals get cheaper the further North you go and cheaper still if you don't mind living inland - Albany for instance (still doesn't take long to get to the coast!).

Real Sunfire has some experience of rentals and commuting in that area, so you could always PM them if they don't spot this thread.

A good starting point for looking at rentals is:

www.realestate.co.nz

They have a North Shore section so you can see which areas show up in your price range and take it from there.

Perhaps if you could tell us the sort of interests you have or facilities you would like, we could suggest a few possible areas - The North Shore is a big place so any info you can give will help! :)

Cheers

Tia

[jshack52]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I have booked the medicals for the 24th november provisionally and have already got the police checks in place, we sent off for them when we put the house on the market, they should just about be in date (under 6 months old). I have most of the documents as needed for hubbys nursing registration so just waiting for them to send them back, they are in the post now. If sale goes through will do the EOI on monday! Seems its going to be very stressful but it will be worth it. Th next selection is on the 7th november so hopefully will have some news soon after!
I have been looking at rentals but difficult when you don't know the areas. Thanks for the advice will look at albany and browns bay, would prefer something newer as we have a 5 month old baby so don't want it to be dangerous or cold.

Thank You Soooooo Much!!!

[holland]

Hi Jess,

We are in the same boat, we are due to exchange and complete on monday the 5th November,hope all goes according to plan, fingers crossed for us both xxx

J x

[Familyofmonkeys]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I have booked the medicals for the 24th november provisionally and have already got the police checks in place, we sent off for them when we put the house on the market, they should just about be in date (under 6 months old). I have most of the documents as needed for hubbys nursing registration so just waiting for them to send them back, they are in the post now. If sale goes through will do the EOI on monday! Seems its going to be very stressful but it will be worth it. Th next selection is on the 7th november so hopefully will have some news soon after!
I have been looking at rentals but difficult when you don't know the areas. Thanks for the advice will look at albany and browns bay, would prefer something newer as we have a 5 month old baby so don't want it to be dangerous or cold.

Thank You Soooooo Much!!!

We also arrived her with young baby...had to have halogen 1200 watt heater on all night just to keep bedroom at 18 degrees for about 8 weeks over winter. Our lounge and kitchen were 6 degrees on some of the colder mornings....horrid. Apart from fact that our current rental has some major plumbing issues, half the reason we are moving is that we don't want to be stuck in a 27 year old house with NO insulation for another winter...it wasn't fun. We have seem alot of more suitable modern properties in Albany, and the newer ones have at least been built with regs that require a minimum amount of insulation...not like we are used to in UK, but some is better than none. Seems that it is definitely an area worth considering :)

[jshack52]

good luck holland, let us know hows it goes

[jshack52]

Hi

Well the house sale has gone through today and i bit the bullet and submitted an EOI with 170 points over the weekend so we will be in Wednesdays draw.

I have booked the shipping of the boxes (we are not taking furniture just stuff in boxes).

I got loads of quotes if anyone needs advice on the cost of shipping boxes as opposed to a container.

We are looking at shipping 10 standard packing boxes with atlantis ltd in Leeds for £334.00. It is £180 for the first 3 boxes and £16 per box thereafter (see below). I think insurance is on top at 3% of value of whats in the boxes.

Hopefully may meet up with other like minded people in January!

Regards

Jess, Alan and Izzy
xxx










Quote From Atlantis Ltd Leeds
for Shipping to residence 30kms Auckland = £292.00 (£180 + £112)

To supply cartons (10 x £3) £ 30.00

Collection from Halifax £ 12.00



Total cost for 10 cartons = £334.00

[Jewels]

Hi Jess

Good Luck with all the move things............

My friend lives in Albany and its a very nice place as is the surrounding area, we visited in February and have been wanting to go back ever since

Hope all works out for you

Jewels