[Perksy]

Hi We are heading over from the UK in September with our dog following on a couple of weeks later. My thoughts are to book into a holiday home which will take a dog while we look for a rental. We will be in either the Palmerston North or Kapiti area.

Does anyone know how smooth and quick is the process of securing a rental in NZ? We are not sure how long to book the holdiay home for and how long after our arrival we should plan for our container to arrive.

Any advice gratefully received. Kim

[catt]

We have a provisional booking on our holiday home for 2 months from the 1 September. We stayed there for part of our recci and got to know the people who own it very well. The reason we have booked it for so long is that the container with our stuff will take about 8 weeks to arrive and also that 8 weeks will give us time to find a rental that will accept a dog. The information that seems to be coming from the forum is that its easier to find a place to rent if you do not have pets, and particularly dogs. We also thought it would give us time to find our feet in the area we want to live, like most areas there will be some good and not so good places to nest.

I have been looking on Trademe and there seems to be some rentals in the area we will be settling (BoP) who do accept dogs but will not know what these are like until we set foot in one.

Good luck in whatever you decide. :cheers

[Asli&Mark]

We could not find any decent place to rent if we had a dog. That was my initial plan that we would get a dog once we arrive (I even arranged a puppy for us before hand) but than house hunting started and many estate agents told us that is not possibe...
We at the end rented a property from the owner itself so we actually had chance to negotiate with the landlady and although she agreed for us to bring over our cats there was no way she'd let us for a dog.

I am trying to say make sure you have long enough time to search for properties with your dog otherwise you might end up in a property that you don't like so much just for the sake of your dog :)

Asli

[familyof5]

Hi, from my experience many rentals advertise no pets, however if you ask them you may find they will allow you a dog with conditions attached, such as the carpets are commercially cleaned when you leave. Sorting out a rental property is very easy here. Might be worth bringing some references with you if possible. We sorted our house out before we arrived in NZ and just collected the keys when we arrived.

[peebles16]

We stayed in motel for first 3 weeks paid for by OH employer and during this time secured a rental property. We didn't have any pets but have to say a fair few of the ones we looked at stated no pets on the advert but were happy to have them once they had sussed us out. Just a note on the references thingy we hadn't rented in the UK for over 10 years so had none but we rented through an agent in NZ and they ask for one week more on the bond... As we had no credit rating for them to check in NZ we thought it was fair enough and we get it back in the end.

HTH :)

Karenx

[IanW99]

...
Does anyone know how smooth and quick is the process of securing a rental in NZ? We are not sure how long to book the holdiay home for and how long after our arrival we should plan for our container to arrive.

Any advice gratefully received. Kim

The actual process of securing a rental is very simple and quick. The hardest part is generally finding a place that you like that hasn't gone before you get a chance to select it. This may depend on the time of the year however and I would guess it will be a little slower in September.

Make sure that you have as many sources of rentals to hand as possible as not all rentals get advertised in the same places, especially try the local papers and trademe.

We came over with a dog (arrived a few weeks later) and didn't actually have much problem finding a rental, but then it may depend on the size of the dog?

It would also be a good idea to check out the local council regarding any rules and regulations e.g. how many dogs, fully fenced sections etc (this can make finding a suitable rental harder to find as not all houses have fully fenced sections).

Ian

[incredible hulse]

We were not able to find a rental in Paraparaumu or Raumati that would take a dog despite offering to pay more bond or rental. Demand was quite high up here at the time (couple of years ago) so I guess they could afford to be choosy. We ended up having a holiday rental for about 2 months that did and we negogiated a longterm rate of about 450 per week (2 bed) - maybe worth checking out holidayhomes and bookabach