Which is the best place to live?

One of the most frequent questions I see is "where is the best place to live?"  I remember when we were just thinking of immigrating and how we dreamed of the different places where we could settle and what it would be like and so on.  The truth is that each of us value different things and so what you would see as the ideal place is likely not the same for another.  Every single city and every single town in New Zealand will have somebody who loves it there and another who absolutely hates it (for whatever reason).


Do yourself a favour and go do a street view on Google Maps.  See for yourself what some of the places look like. 
 
We have lived in both Auckland and Wellington.  Yes, both cities have good points and both cities have points not so good.  But I like both.  Auckland is warmer, but it can rain a lot.  It has a lot of traffic (in comparison) - but then at the time we came from Johannesburg so really the traffic wasn't an issue at all.  It has good bus transport but I wasn't on a train line so really couldn't discuss the trains.  We lived on the North Shore at the time.  No particular reason other than we lived with somebody for  the first week or so and that's where they stayed.  I liked the beaches as they were safe and child-friendly.  The beaches on our side of Auckland didn't have large waves to deal with and with a toddler that was perfect.  Our daughter went to Oteha Valley School - an absolutely fantastic school in my opinion.  In Auckland we lived in Forrest Hill (very briefly), Milford and Albany / Northcross area.  I think most places there are good and I would happily live in any of the suburbs.  In saying that I personally am not a fan of Glenfield (although love the mall and the indoor pool there) and Birkenhead.  I loved visiting Devonport and the shopping area in Takapuna.  There are loads of really cool parks for the kids.  Browns Bay felt a little bit like Umbogintwini where my grandmother lived many years ago.  I wasn't so keen on the rest of Auckland.  Closer to the city felt too city-like and too busy, South Auckland wasn't an area where I felt would be suitable for my children and again I wasn't personally a fan of West Auckland (but lots of people love it there).  With Auckland I think you want to consider where you work and what your transport options would be.  Keep in mind that Auckland is pretty big, has a bigger traffic problem, can be quite expensive and regardless of which city you choose, you don't usually get parking covered in your salary.  And parking can probably be around $20 a day for some places.


I like the Wellington area too.  It can be colder, it can get quite windy in some areas, but it is smaller and more compact.  It can be a bit cheaper to live I think.  Here I have lived in Khandallah, Tawa, Aotea and the Kapiti Coast.  Kapiti Coast is further out the city, but it doesn't get quite as windy.  I really like it here.  I personally wouldn't want to live in Otaki, Porirua East, Cannons Creek, Newlands, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt, Newtown and actually a lot of the more inner city suburbs for various reasons.


Keep in mind that my reasons for not liking a place is different to another and only you can decide in the end where would suit you.


Don't commit to a rental unless you checked it out for yourself.  You have to get a sense of the neighbourhood, check out if it ticks all your boxes in terms of what you want for your family and more importantly do that rental home moving in inspection with the agent.  More on this later on.


So where is the best place? 


My standard answer is "where the jobs are".  Go look on Seek, do a search for the field you are working in and based on that work out where you have the most opportunities.  It is all very well to say you want to live in Napier or Tauranga or Nelson or wherever but then there are almost no job opportunities for you there.  So initially you will want to go where you at least have some options.  Keep in mind that your first job may not be the one you will want to settle in longer term for whatever reason, so having more options is the better way to go.  I remember with hubby he was in IT (either Oracle Datawarehousing or Java as his main areas of focus) and for that our options were really only just Auckland or Wellington.  I think once there was an option in Tauranga, but it was just one and it wasn't suitable in the end.  So there was no point in us looking at other cities.  Moving cities can be pretty expensive and once you have kids in school it becomes less simple.


Second, keep in mind that most schools will be zoned.  So when you know which city or town you are likely to go to, do a search for the different schools in that area, read the ERO reports, have a look at their websites and then take a map and circle the school zone on this.  So now if you look at rental  homes you know which areas you want to consider based on the schools you think would be suitable for your kids.  Most schools are good.  The decile rating is purely an indication of the income group in that area, but I know some lower decile schools that are amazing and some higher decile schools (even as high as 9 or 10) where I would not want my kids.  The best way to see is to go meet some of these principals and get a feel for the person he / she is, the leadership style, the staff turnover, see if the kids look fairly happy and settled, ask about their bully prevention strategies and so on.  Every single school will have some issues and some children who are not very good.  That is a fact of life.  But it is the school's approach that makes the difference.  Take Kings College in Auckland for example.  It is regarded as one of the best schools academic-wise.  A lot of parents would do whatever to get their kids there.  But... The school has a massive drinking and drugs culture with a lot of the children who go there (that is not to say other schools don't have this problem also, it is just that this one seems particularly bad).  They have been in the media so many times.  There is no way in hell I would ever want my kids to go to that school.  So don't just go on the decile rating.  Sure ask people which schools their kids go to and what they like about it and what they don't.  But in the end only you can work out which school you want for your kids and remember that most schools will be good and you will be more than happy with them.  It might be that you want a smaller school or you are happy with a bigger school or whatever.  We have been pretty happy with the schools my kids went to and my oldest has just started college (one she mostly chose) and we could not be happier.


I'll write in more detail about schools in another post.