Kiwification

photo credit: alborzshawn

Dear loved ones who are not (yet) in New Zealand,

Exciting news.. we’ve bought a house!

Exactly three months after arriving in our new home of New Zealand, we will be the proud owners of a 3-bedroom house in Tamatea.

We’ve been house-hunting since we arrived, and while New Zealand housing is horrifically expensive compared to what we were used to in South Africa, we’ve decided to take the plunge and get back into the housing market.

Our average New Zealand house

Our new home is a 682sqm property in Tamatea, Napier. It’s a stock-standard Kiwi home, build in the seventies, with three bedrooms, lounge, dining room, and a small (isolated) kitchen. It has a separate toilet and bathroom / shower on the far side of the house. The roof, like most Kiwi roofs, is made of corrugated iron - practical, sun-proof, low maintenance. Typical Kiwi. Most fences (between neighbors) are corrugated iron too, but ours is made of wooden slats. (Which are showing their age)

How long does it take to buy a house in New Zealand?

Property transactions happen quickly here. Ours took two weeks, but I’ve spoken to Kiwis who did the whole deal over a weekend. It’s a good idea to make your offer conditional on a satisfactory builder’s report, especially if you’re unfamiliar with New Zealand houses.

How much does a house cost in New Zealand?

This freehold (i.e., not leasehold) average starter home, in need of renovation, cost us around $260,000. The legal fees for the transfer came to about $1,000. Interest rates are between 9.5% and 10.7%, depending on how long you want to fix them for. Council and regional rates are approximately $1,000 per year.

In summary, we’re estimating paying $500 per week in pure house costs. (That’s not including water and electricity - yeah, ouch! )

Unlike South Africa (and elsewhere?), there’s no transfer duty on property sales.

Beware recently “done-up” houses in New Zealand

What we discovered while house-hunting was that “vendors” (sellers) often “do-up” a house prior to selling it, hoping to recover the cost of the renovations, as well as to make a quick profit. While these houses look good, and you’re able to “just move in”, there’s a good chance that either the work wasn’t done exactly the way you’d like it, or it was done in a rush, and may end up looking worse in a few years.

Renovating your own house in New Zealand

Given the uncertainty of paying for somebody else’s renovation work, and the Kiwi “do-it-yourself” mentality, we chose to buy a house which hadn’t been renovated, and do it up ourselves. (Kiwis are big into DIY)

The roofing, wallpaper, and fittings need to be modernized, but the “bones” of the house are solid. Over the next year or two, as we have the funds available, we’ll shuffle the house around, switching the kitchen and the lounge, adding an en-suite bathroom to the master bedroom, and building a deck. We’ll be putting up a fence soon, so that we can have pets.

Love from New Zealand

We move in on Friday 4th April 2008. Thank you for your emails, support, Facebook messages, tweets, etc. Next update will be from KiwiHQ. Watch Facebook for pictures!

Love,
Dave & Gayle (The Fresh Young Kiwis)

P.S. Follow our adventures - get updates by email here!