This is part of a series all about our home. This series details our search for somewhere to settle in New Zealand after moving from the UK, finding that somewhere, getting a house, and making it a home. I’m not sure how long this series will go for…we’ve now moved into our beautiful home but there is much more still to be done!
PART I
Living in England long term was never part of my original plan. My intention was to be there for just one academic year. Beyond that, I didn’t know what would happen but naturally I assumed whatever did happen would do so in New Zealand.
And then I stayed for more than six years*.
At first that was because of the job I got upon graduating, but ultimately, I stayed in England because I had met the love of my life. Enter: Gareth.
In the nearly four years we were together in the UK we built a beautiful life together. Family, friends, travelling and being together in our little 2-bedroom flat in Peterborough.
As my Mum would say, we were “DINKYs”. (Double income, no kids).
Eventually, however, we slowly made the decision that our future lay in New Zealand. As hard as it would be for us to leave the UK, we saw unique opportunities in the land of the long white cloud. There were several reasons, but one of them was that our ultimate goal is to have land. NZ could offer us something the UK couldn’t: value for money when it came to purchasing a property.
Or so it seemed in 2019.
Gareth spent a lot of time looking at real estate in NZ and we were both blown away by how much land you could buy for a reasonable price.
We spent many months planning a move to NZ and then came the thing no one could predict (well, unless maybe you’re Bill Gates): a global pandemic.
Yes, COVID tried to disrupt Gareth’s visa process, but we battled through the logistics and eventually found ourselves in Quarantine in the middle of Auckland City.
But that wasn’t the biggest obstacle this virus threw at us.
For many in NZ (and other parts of the world) the silver lining to masks, social distancing and lockdowns was incredibly low interest rates. Unfortunately, the accompanying big black cloud was extortionately high property prices.
By the time Gareth and I moved to NZ and began to look for a home to buy, property prices were through the roof. The 2019 market had nothing on what we were looking at in 2021. Our dream of having land wasn’t impossible, but it wasn’t a sure thing either.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, because it ultimately sets the scene for the journey we have been on to buy the home we have just moved in to.
When we moved to NZ, we didn’t have any one place in mind that we wanted to settle. We were happy to consider anywhere and everywhere, and that was one of the reasons we planned a month-long campervan trip around the country.
That was an extraordinary trip for more than one reason, but it didn’t really help us to pinpoint our dream location. All we knew was that the West Coast of the South Island was a no-go – far too many midges and mosquitos.
When we returned from our camper trip we settled into a new chapter of life, living with my parents and keeping an eye on the property market, while we waited for Gareth to become eligible to buy house in NZ.
During this time something else became apparent to us. There is so much value in living near a support network. I mean, why move halfway across the world, away from Gareth’s family and our friends, only to settle in a remote corner of NZ? Family, friends and community is such an integral part of life.
Unfortunately for us, our biggest support network in NZ happens to live within commuting distance to Auckland city. That meant that with our budget we could have some grass, or a house, but not those two things in the same place. And we wanted to have our cake and eat it too.
Which eventually led us on to consider Taranaki.
I had several friends living in the region, so that was a big tick in the “support network” box. Property prices were significantly more reasonable than around Auckland. Another tick. Also, and maybe most importantly, the more time we spent visiting friends there the more we realised that we really liked it.
It’s a long way from the hustle, bustle and incessant traffic jams of Auckland, but still has a thriving city with everything you need. It has beautiful countryside, an extraordinary mountain and it’s also on the coast. Look, it’s unlikely this paragraph will get me a job with Taranaki’s Tourism Board but what I’m trying to say is that we felt the region offered us our ideal lifestyle.
So, when we found a property that met our (renewed) criteria and our budget it was a no-brainer – we would put in an offer.
Well, this is going to be a short series, isn’t it? One blog post and we’re already moving to Taranaki, where our new home is.
Wrong. We’re only just getting started.
Stay tuned for the next post where I learned all about how there is nothing simple or easy about buying a home.
That’s all for now,
Jordyn
"Buy land, they're not making it anymore." - Mark Twain
*Technically in that time I also did five months in the USA and three months in Ireland but explaining that interrupted the dramatic pause I was going for.
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