[H & Rick]

We will be arriving in Christchurch on the 27th February 2008.

Our plan is to book a holiday home for two weeks before we leave and then look for a rental while we are living in the holiday home.
We were just wondering if the time scale we have set ourselves is realistic?
How long does it take to get into a rental?
Does anyone living in Christchurch know of any good contacts in this field?

We have contacted a couple of agents and hope to get a couple of viewings lined up.

Just wondering how did you do it?

[benandclare]

Hi Guys,

We had to move out of our first rental and only needed a rental for 6 weeks and found it very hard to find one for such a short period of time.

How long are you looking to rent for? Long term you should have no problem finding something suitable in your prefered areas.

I'll dig out the agents we used to find the second rental and pm you.

Trade me is also a good place to look and all of the big estate agents have rental sections

We stayed in Jo100's flat for our first 4 weeks which was cool:laugh

Look forward to some more new Cantabrians and you're just in time for the new rugby season, off to get our season tickets later today :D

[H & Rick]

Hi Ben & Claire

Thanks for the reply, will pm you.

[settersred]

We found finding a rental quite tuff, but we were looking in Rangiora and we did have 3 kids and a dog. We ended up on a Home stay for 3 weeks with some people our friends knew, It was ok but expensive, luckily a rental came up and we were not tied in to any time scales. We have now bought in Loburn.

Where are you looking to rent, is it in Christchurch itself? If you are coming this way let me know and we may be able to help.

[Pip]

ditto what some of the others have said. If you look at bach's/holiday homes etc you should be fine - most people have then found a rental within a few weeks.

we rented a holiday home for four weeks with the same plan as you i.e find a rental - in fact, the people booked in after us had to cancel and we took the plunge, stayed for another six weeks and bought somewhere in the meantime (lot quicker to buy a house in NZ than the UK)

would suggest websites for holiday homes and contacting owners directly - try these two - its linked to where we stayed (poss a bit remote for some), but you can use the search engine on the sites to look at other stuff in chc - and filter if you need ones with pets, which was one of our criteria! second site is probably the better of the two

http://www.holidayhouses.co.nz/properties/4562.asp

http://www.holidayhomes.co.nz/new-zealand/south-island/canterbury/rangiora/listing/2420.html

good luck....and let us know if you need any more help