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Please note this was originally written in 2006 and has only been occasionally updated since. The general information is still accurate but I can no longer vouch for any of the details around immigration. Please double check anything you read here and good luck with moving! — Adam, September 2015
I grew up half and half between the United States and New Zealand. In 2003 I moved from Portland, Oregon to New Zealand so I could take a job working in Wellington. Though I partially grew up in New Zealand, I hadn't lived there since 1997 and had never lived in Wellington.
Since we moved I've been asked repeatedly about how we like it, what it takes to move and what people should know before they move. This guide makes no claim to be definitive or even correct, it is simply a collection of my experiences and thoughts. Due to my personal experience it is probably most relevant to Americans thinking about moving to New Zealand though I hope it will be relevant to anyone considering the move.
Adam.
New Zealand is made up of two major islands (the North Island and the South Island) and some smaller outlying ones (Stewart Island and the Chatham Islands). The North Island is 113,729 square km and holds three of the four million people who live here, the South Island is 151,215 square km and has most of the remaining population. Two of the three million people who live in the North Island, live in Auckland. To give you some perspective, the combined size of New Zealand is approximately two thirds of the size of California yet the entire population is less than that of the San Francisco Bay Area.
There are five main cities, Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington in the North Island and Christchurch and Dunedin in the South Island. Auckland is by far the largest, is the business centre and the most “American”. Hamilton is an inland rural service city with Waikato University. Wellington is the capital and Christchurch and Dunedin are mostly rural centres though they are large enough to be cities in their own right. All except Hamilton are coastal and built around natural ports, and have coastal weather with all that that implies.
It's important to understand that the best and the worst thing about New Zealand is that it is a very long way from every where else. It's a 12 hour flight from Auckland to Los Angeles and four hours to Sydney. This distance keeps it somewhat insulated from the turbulence and influence of the world and seems to be what attracts people to it. However, this distance also means that many of the conveniences (speciality foods, gadgets, shopping, performance art, near by holiday spots, conferences, etc) you are used to are more expensive and harder to find.
If you want the cold hard facts about New Zealand a good place to look is the CIA Word Fact Book's entry for New Zealand.
Because New Zealand is below the equator the seasons are reversed. This means that the months of summer are from December to February (yes this means Christmas is in high summer!). This also means that the sun arcs to the north and confusingly it apparently arcs counter-clockwise. The farther south you go, the closer you get to Antarctica, and the colder it becomes.
Once I meet a middle aged tourist in Dunedin who said he had heard NZ summer weather was poor but that horizontal rain and 4°C was ridiculous for the middle of July! I had to gently explain that it was the middle of winter. – Brett Shand
The entire country has an “island climate” which means that the weather changes continually and you get rain, storms and sun all year round. If it helps you get a feeling there is a local joke which goes, “What do you do if you don't like the weather? Wait 15 minutes”. In general the farther north you go the warmer the weather while the farther inland you go the more settled the weather and the greater the seasonal temperature variations.
By and large the climate is temperate but there are large regional variations. Depending on where you are the climate can vary from temperate rain forest, to sub-tropical, to Mediterranean and even to desert.
Each of the major cities has a noticeably different climate, and since the cities are where most people end up and everyone wants to know about the weather, here's my take on it (note that I've only ever lived in Wellington and Dunedin though I've visited all of them):
You can find the current weather for New Zealand and the the major cities at metservice.com.
Being a citizen I actually don't know that much about how this works, so this will be fairly vague. The rules are constantly changing so please double check anything I say.
Unless you have a criminal conviction, you should have no problems getting into the country with a tourist visa. Tourist visas are typically good for three months and can be extended for up to a year (not sure of what conditions apply). If you want to live in New Zealand you will need to get a work visa or apply for residency. Your application is processed on a points system where things like your age, if you already have family in the country, how much money you are bringing with you, your education, the size of your family and your job skills are all worth a certain number of points. If you have enough points then you can expect to get a visa without too much trouble. It cost us nearly NZ$1000 to get my wife's residency finalised so be prepared to spend some money on the process. Be wary of immigration agents who offer to help for a fee, there are scam artists out looking to take advantage of people. All the information you need is available for free from the NZ government.
Once you have held a valid visa for two years and lived in New Zealand for a certain percentage of that time (something like 80%) you may apply for permanent residency. Being a resident gives you the right to work, attend school (at the same subsidised rate as New Zealanders), cheap health care (and free emergency health care) and also confers the right to vote. Once you've been a resident for four years you may apply for citizenship.
If you have a long term partner that you are not married to, New Zealand honours de facto relationships (common law marriage), so if one of you gets a job here you should be able to bring the other. You should expect a healthy chunk of extra paperwork to prove that you've been living together and have “entwined finances”.
The property market has recently exploded with housing prices doubling every few years in some places. This is due mostly to the construction market being unable to keep up with the demands placed on it by a recent large influx of immigrants and a large amount of overseas investment in New Zealand real estate. The severity of the increases and the slowly increasing interest rate has many people predicting that house prices will fall in the near future. What will actually happen is still any ones guess.
House prices vary drastically depending on where you live. Auckland is the most expensive with Wellington close behind, Christchurch and Dunedin are much cheaper but are trying hard to catch up. Smaller towns will be cheaper still unless they are also a popular holiday spot in which case prices can remain a bit absurd. In Wellington or Auckland, in a good suburb which is close to downtown you can expect to pay over NZ$500,000 for a family sized home. For something a bit farther out or in a less desirable area you can get a nice family size house for around NZ$300,000. In smaller towns or the outer suburbs you can still find nice housing for under NZ$200,000 though they are getting harder to find. The best way to get a feel for house prices is to browse the listings from the real estate agents.
Because of increasing property prices, rental prices are also increasing. In Wellington or Auckland you can expect to pay around NZ$350/week for a small house or a nice apartment near downtown. If you're willing to live farther out of town or in smaller and older houses much cheaper options are available. It's fairly common for strangers to share a house and live together, this can significantly cut down on rent and utility bills. You should be able to find a room in house or apartment for anywhere from NZ$80 - $200/week.
You can find pretty much any type of lease you are looking for (fixed term, month to month etc) and rent is typically paid weekly by automatic payment (straight from your bank account to the landlords). Many flats are leased without appliances so you should be prepared to buy or rent a fridge/freezer. washer/dryer and anything else you need. You can expect to pay 2-4 weeks rent in advance, 2-4 weeks bond (security deposit) and give 30 days notice if you want to end the lease. The bond is not held by the landlord but rather by the Tenancy Tribunal. When the lease ends the Tribunal decides if the landlord gets to keep any of your money and you must apply to them to get your money back (I believe you can request that it be transferred to your next bond).
If you are going to be renting it's a good idea to stop by the Tenancy Tribunal and get one of their pamphlets about your rights and obligations as a renter as there are landlords around who will try and take advantage of you.
Most houses do not have central heating and are poorly insulated which keeps heating costs higher than you would expect. Because of this most people only keep the rooms they are using heated which can take a bit of getting used to by most Americans. Even in the heated rooms it's considered normal to only heat to the point where you are comfortable when wearing a warm layer (eg. a sweater or sweatshirt).
Update 16 May 2008: As with the rest of the western world NZ property prices have stalled and Dunedin property prices slipped by an average if 1.2% last quarter. Property prices are expected to continue to stall and fall somewhat in some places. Mortgage rates are high (around 9%) but as the economy slows with the rest of the west, banks are starting to reduce them.
In general you can expect things to be more expensive, especially anything which has to be imported from overseas (brand name and speciality items, appliances, electronics, cars). This is partly due to the cost of importing, partly due to economies of scale, partly due to the exchange rate and partly due to many of the conveniences which American stores take advantage of (eg. free return of unsold goods) being unavailable to NZ stores.
The exceptions to the more expensive rule is food, health care and insurance. Food is similarly priced and the quality is very good, even from the supermarkets. Health care is subsidised by the government and costs are similar to what you would pay if you had insurance in the states. Because of the limitations on what you can sue for insurance is still very cheap.
The biggest difference is that cars have the steering wheel on the right hand side of the card and you drive on the left hand side of the road. This means that it's not practical to bring your car with you from a country which drives on the right had side of the road. Even though you can drive on your American drivers license for one year it's worth going down to the Ministry of Transport (the equivalent of the DMV) and getting a copy of the road rules as there are a few rules which are confusingly different from the States.
With limited exceptions in Wellington and Auckland there is nothing that compares to the American freeway system. Roads tend to be narrow and even major highways are mostly two lane roads (one lane each way).
There is a fairly cheap and reliable bus service (much much nicer than American buses) between most cities and trains between the major cities. Trains can be quite cheap but are also slow and prone to breaking down.
Domestic air travel is still fairly expensive but it's getting cheaper and I'm hopeful that the new cut rate air services will make flying around New Zealand and to and from Australia a more reasonable option.
Public transportation within the cities exists but is nothing special. Almost all cities have a bus service of some sort and some have light rail for the major commuter lines. Wellington is probably about as good as it gets as the bus service is decent and the city is quite compact due to the way it's built around the hills and the harbour.
Traffic congestion is getting to be a significant problem in Auckland but it isn't bad by American standards anywhere else.
The economy is currently booming, unemployment is around 3.5% (16 May 2008) and there is a worker shortage. If you're looking to move to New Zealand to work there will probably never be a better time.
If you do high tech work there is plenty of work all over the country though the majority of the senior level “interesting” work will be in Auckland and Wellington. You should expect salaries to peak earlier than they do in the states with it being hard to find jobs for more than NZ$80k/year for purely technical jobs.
Finding work from overseas can be very difficult unless you know local people that can vouch for you (and even that may only be of limited help). Occasionally I run into people who come to New Zealand on a holiday visa and spend their time here looking for work. I don't know how it works out for them but I suspect being available for interviews and being able to meet people face to face will help immensely. You have to remember that once you find a job you still have to go through all the paperwork of applying for a work/residency visa and that you may be required to leave the country to submit the application and only allowed to re-enter once your new visa is approved.
You should double check the legality and practicality of this before you try it.
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