My wife, dog, and myself moved to Christchurch in August 2018. We're on resident SMC visas. We're over the 6 month hump now, here's what we learned:
Moving
1. We should have sold our house before we moved. Partially constrained by my previous employer. Small town, everyone knows if you list - you leave. So we listed after we gave notice. The timing ended up such that we sold in month 3 in NZ but before the tax year roll over. Had to declare ourselves non-residents of Canada to avoid any future complications. Too much detail to get into but I would not do it this way if it can be avoided. It's expensive, you open yourself up for taxation on your principal residence and getting clearance (i.e getting your money) takes months!
2. Shipping our goods by ourselves was the right decision. We down-sized. Got rid of ~50% of our belongings and ordered our own 20' container. We moved via Vancouver and packed and delivered our goods to the exporter in Richmond, BC. Saved about $2k there. Total cost CAD from drop to door in ChCh was ~$7k CAD. Took almost 2 months to the day, so not bad timing as well. Only downside - you cannot get insurance for damaged goods if you self-pack...or at least reasonable insurance. Just total loss. Our stuff isn't that great so we took the risk. Glad we have our belongings! And yes - mattresses are ridiculously expensive (to the point of being comically insane). Bring a good mattress. Box springs are reasonable.
3. The dog was a lot of money. Total cost was ~$8k CAD. Yup, you better *really* like your dog. There is no real cheap way to do it. It was 10 vet visits in CAD + all the export non sense and the quarantine once you arrive. You can try to do it yourself but unless you have support on either end, it can be a nightmare. We used a pet exporter and they were poor quality service. Wife ended up doing most of the work and saved the day a few times as the clerks were inept to say the least. Still - dog made it a-ok. She's happy and healthy so it worked out.
Rentals + Living
1. ChCh has a lot of options, have a look around. Lots of bad places for $450/wk...and then lots of good places for $500+/wk. Totally doesn't make sense with that close of price but we found it true. We looked at ~20 places. Search was harder with a dog but we found a post-quake town home, near parks, closeish to CBD. Very close to work. $525/wk. Good enough for the first year.
2 . Car shopping is fun/nightmare. I enjoyed it. Wife did not. Lots of cool Japanese cars you've never seen/heard of. Downside, lots of Japanese cars you've never seen nor heard of...hard to have a baseline. We stuck with a NZ New Honda CRV and Japanese import Honda Fit. Prices were reasonable. Comparable to CAD. Fit was actually decent value (< $7k good used, late model, lowish kms). Insurance was cheap. Gas is expensive ~$2/L right now. Although we run high grade through both vehicles..and they both get good mileage.
3. Cost of living is more True/False? True-ish. We found it to be "choose your own adventure". If you want to stick to a NA diet you'll be dropping $2k/month at New World. However, farmer's markets and smart shopping the sales we found you get better quality basics (meat, veg, fruit) at the same or lower price than CAD. Some toiletries are stupid. Shampoo can be $14/bottle for a $3/bottle in CAD. Again - choose wisely and you can narrow things down. We're probably around $1k/mo now for 2 people with toiletries and basic household sundries.
4. Housing is underwhelming. It's not horrible in ChCh, just a quirky market. We're looking to buy at the end of the year and have been looking around. Prices are all out of whack with value. Still, some things are áffordable' by global standards and that's why we only could do Canterbury. The north island is a write-off as far as we're concerned (unless you're coming in cashed-up, which we're not). Pre-quake homes here are mostly poor quality vs CAD/US standards. Some newer builds are nice though. And similar to rentals - lots of garbage out there people are asking a mint for. Shop around. You still have that luxury in ChCh. It's very easy to overpay in NZ for housing. A housing downturn here would be scary, you could easily get caught in a dump that drops $100k in a year and you just couldn't sell it. Hopefully the contagion from Oz doesn't float this way...not sure what we're going to do, potentially looking at building. We'll see.
5. There are no "deals"in NZ. Straight up - you get the B run import stuff here for plastics, furniture, etc on sale or for cheap. Real chunky stuff from a NA perspective. However, pay a premium and the quality can be exponential. Sometimes that can be as little as 10-20% for something made in Germany, Japan, USA versus B-grade import stuff. Remember - almost all of your consumables come in via boat. So everything is baseline more expensive. You can still order online via Amazon USA (NZ Post has a cool service call YouShop - check it out)...although there are *still* good small businesses here. Thank god for a small market economy. It has yet to be ruined by online shopping. We have literally stopped buying anything online and try to shop local. After 10 years of an Amazon addiction I'm recovering well. Sorry Jeff.
Work
I got a job before we left through old work connections. That's probably less common than most. The one thing they did like here was that we came visa in hand. We also did a recce trip and did some informational interviews as a back up plan. Well received. I work in engineering/hi tech. Salaries are 10-20% lower here on a dollar-dollar basis (not PPP)...but work life is definitely better. Very few people work over 40 hrs/wk where I work (~300 ppl).
My wife has struggled to find a job here. We're still working on it and ramping up the effort but not a ton going on in ChCh and lots of young folks around so she's got an uphill battle. All we can say is skill-up before you leave. Have good references and a plan of attack once you're ready. Good luck!
Overall, the move was expensive. We cooked $60k-$70k NZD in about 4 months (in the 2 mos before, 2 mos after the actual flight). But it's a major life change and an adventure. We're glad we did it.
Hope this helps someone. Ask if you have questions. Responses might be delayed but I will check back every now and then.
Cheers!