We have noticed that finding a decent rental property in a good area can be quite a challenge overhere. The reason why we struggled was that we were new to the area and didn’t have the information that you need when looking for a new home.
1. Unlike Belgium NZ has, besides good and bad areas, also good and bad streets, which can have a good and bad side and even a good or bad start or end of the street! You really need to be able to rely on the trustworthyness of your real estate agent. But even when you’ve found a street with a good reputation, this can quickly change when a couple of rough neighbours move in. The house we’re renting now is located at the beginning of Hall Road, which has the reputation to have a good beginning but rougher end. The area, called Matua, has got an overal good reputation.
2. You want a house with a good orientation, because properties are often built on a slope, and you don’t want to be living in the shade.
3. The climate is so much more important that in Belgium: you need to think of the influence of the sea, the hills and mountains, the winds (you have no idea how many winds they've got here and they all seem to affect the weather), ...
4. You want to find an area that is not too isolated from the rest of the country.
5. Most of the houses are not insulated and don’t have central heating, but this is slowly changing, as the NZ government is now handing out subsidies for the installation of a heatpump (can be used as an airconditioning system in summer and heating in winter). Because of the cold winters most houses have carpet all through the house. We even have carpet in our toilet and bathroom! Great when you have little kids splashing in the bath and peeing next to the toilet... I can’t wait till we start potty-training Jacob.
6. In the old days people used to build houses on big plots of land, but as the cities have become too widespread and landprices have gone up tremendously the large sections have been divided in two, sometimes even three pieces! We viewed houses that were surrounded by 4-5 neighbours. These subdivisions make the gardens extremely tiny. Sometimes you will find a house on the street with a driveway next to it that leads to one or two more houses. This is actually the case with our house, which is built behind another house that has hardly any garden left. We’re very lucky with our garden, which is situated on a slope behind the house. The lemon and grapefruit tree are not so uncommon for this area, which is the fruit capital of NZ and famous for its kiwifruit.
7. Very few houses have a gas cooker. Most people are cooking on electric cookers that come with strange spiral elements which are pretty hard to clean. I’d better stop being messy while cooking.
8. In most areas you don’t pay any water bills, but we do in the Bay of Plenty, because it is one of the warmest area’s of NZ. We’re happy to pay for the water in return for all the sun we’re getting here.
9. I’m sure that I’ve forgotten a lot of other factors that we had to keep in mind, but the ones mentioned above should do for now.
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