[Y&T Smith]

Hello to everyone

We have been looking into moving to either New Zealand or Ireland for some time now, and plan on moving as soon as the ol' lady graduates. I stumbled upon this forum and have read through quite a bit, I must say there is a lot of great information on here.

I have a few questions though, and was wondering if anyone could be of any help. I am a Diesel Mechanic and my OH is getting her Masters in Occupational Therapy in about 1.5 years or so. We have been looking around online and it seems like she could be payed anywhere from 40k-100k NZ per year, and most Diesel jobs i have seen are paying around 45-65k a year. We're wondering if this would be enough money to buy a house on the SI (we have been looking to working in Christchurch, but would like to live outside of a city) and have some extra for savings or traveling?

We have more questions but I didn't want to get carried away on my first post.

[Mickstim]

Hello and welcome to the roller coaster!!

[SNK05]

Hi Y&T...

Can't help I'm afraid but welcome to the forum. Good luck...


Sue Kev
xx

[JandL]

Welcome!

[Kiwi-In-Texas]

Hello and welcome. Good luck with your plans.














Suzanne.

[AdrianT]

hello and welcome (sorry I cannot help with your query)

[Mrs Pony]

WOW! Another American! yeah!

No advise but...Welcome and enjoy the ride!

[Moorf]

Hi and Welcome,

For house buying, a lot will depend on the size of your deposit as to what you can afford, and whereabouts outside chch you want to live. The cost of housing varies tremendously depending on exactly where you want to live.

Moorf

[kiwijock]

Welcome, we not in NZ yet so can't really comment on cost of houses/living etc, but there is loads of useful info on this site.

:)

[JandM]

Hello, and welcome.:)

Do you have any more precise ideas about whereabouts you would like to live, size of house, etc.? That would help people help you with more info, perhaps.

[Y&T Smith]

Thanks for the welcome

As for housing, we dont really know exactly where, just somewhere close (15-30 min) to Chch, or could be somewhere else on the SI if she could find work there. We also don't need anything special, we dont watch TV or or really have a need for a lot of furniture, but we would like to have kids someday. So we would need a big enough house to raise a few kids.

We are still young though, and we would not have to buy a house right away, we could rent. But would this be possible within a year or so of living there? How much money would the average couple need to make in a year to do this and also be able to travel once in a while?

[Ness]

Hey,

have a look at trademe.co.nz. Lots of real estate listings there, both for sale and for rent. This will give you an idea of the cost.

On our trip to ChCh, we discovered that mortgage rates are incredibly high compared to the US (9-10%), but so are interest rates on deposits (same range). So if you could bring a nest egg from the US and invest it for a while in CDs etc, that might be helpful.

We also bought a book "Buying a house in NZ" on Amazon, which had some good info about the process and the kinds of houses you can find in NZ -not that we've gone through the process ourselves, but it was nice to have an idea what to look out for. It also prepared us for the apparently poor standard of heating in a place where it can drop into the 30s overnight.

Good luck!

[Leanne]

Welcome to the forum.
:)

[slider]

Hello, and welcome to the forum :)

[Y&T Smith]

Thanks Ness i will check those out!

hello everyone

[dilanium]

Hello, welcome, and good luck! :)