Looking at rents across the North Island, mainly from the Dept of Building and housing website.

So the question: why are the Rotorua and Taupo areas (Taupo apparently more so than Rotorua) so inexpensive? We have visited both destinations and Taupo in particular seemed quite liveable. In the US, generally, if it's cheap to live someplace, there's a reason for it. Is this not the case in NZ? Or does Taupo have some terrible secret that I don't know about?

This is not purely an academic question - we have airfare to Auckland but have not yet sorted jobs or accommodation - so we are the very definition of flexible. ANY advice is very welcome.