Originally Posted by
nickydwuk
When we moved to NZ we bought a house before we arrived as our intention was to live there for good. To cut a long story short we decided to return to the UK within a year of moving. Our return was delayed as we had to sell the house and the market was poor. We both said that we would have been better to rent to begin with. That way if we wanted to move to a different part of NZ we could just up sticks and go or if we wanted to return to UK we could quite quickly.
Although renting can be seen as throing away good money when you are making a huge life chaning move such as emigration it would be wise to take tihngs slow and not rush headlong into buying a property. I know others who have bought almost straight away and never looked back.
I agree with Nicky here.. I have always owned houses, not rented for long at all..we bought in Christchurch with intentions of staying, but were forced back to Australia after 9 months..all the money we could have spent on rent worked out the same as we lost on the house. We were lucky as we only had the house on the market for nearly 4 months before we sold it, but we lost $30,000 nzd on the sale, and we lost more on the exchange back to Oz..
I would rent also to see if you would like an area..when we moved we couldn't find a rental and had to buy, our kids already missed a term of school, and we couldn't get them into schools for the new year without an address..
Good luck whatever you decide to do!