# Moving from US to New Zealand



## JenRyan (Feb 12, 2014)

Hello all,

Me & my boyfriend are really considering moving to New Zealand. I haven't done much research so I thought I should ask people that have moved & are living there now. I don't have any children just my cat. :3
Could you give us an estimate on how much it would cost? I'm mainly looking to rent. I also don't have a specific city in mind. How would we start to get the ball rolling visa wise? How are colleges? Is it super hard to find a job even a retail one? 
Thanks!


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## Kimbella (Jul 4, 2013)

JenRyan said:


> Hello all,
> 
> Me & my boyfriend are really considering moving to New Zealand. I haven't done much research so I thought I should ask people that have moved & are living there now. I don't have any children just my cat. :3
> Could you give us an estimate on how much it would cost? I'm mainly looking to rent. I also don't have a specific city in mind. How would we start to get the ball rolling visa wise? How are colleges? Is it super hard to find a job even a retail one?
> Thanks!


It's going to be hard to really give you any specifics without you having at least some idea of why you want to move here, i.e., want to move to Wellington to attend WETA workshops, move to Auckland to build yachts, move to Christchurch to rebuild the city, move to Dunedin to study at Otago Uni...

First I suggest you go to the INZ website (Immigration New Zealand) and use their Visa tool to help you find one that suits your circumstances--no one but you will know the answers to what Visa will get you here (if any).

So, to the question about cost, that is going to depend on the Visa, you will need to use the INZ website to find which one suits your circumstances. A work Visa can range from around $270 and up.

Rent is also going to depend very much on where you live. The more populated areas can be quite pricey to rent or even buy in: Auckland and Christchurch at the moment, but the further south you go, the rent generally gets cheaper (and the weather usually gets worse). Go to the site TradeMe and look at property rentals to get an idea of what you'll be looking at, price wise, and what that will get you. Understand that NZ does not generally have "apartment" living as we know it in the US, they don't have huge blocks of sprawling apartment complexes to provide cheap and easy housing... maybe parts of Auckland, but definitely not here in the S Island... 

Colleges are fine, but unless you get residency, you'll be paying international student prices for tuition which can be extremely expensive.

Finding a job can be difficult (but not always), the immigration laws here provide security to kiwis in that "legally" jobs are supposed to be offered to qualified kiwis first before non-nationals can be offered the job. Depending on your age, you might want to look at the INZ website and check out the Working Holiday Visa. It may give you the answers you need on how to get here, what sort of work you can do, and the flexibility you need.

Hope this helps somewhat! You really will need to focus your own vision a bit in order to decide on what you want to do, where you want to be, and how to go about making it a reality.

Cheers!


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## JenRyan (Feb 12, 2014)

Thank you I really appreciate the answer back. I'm about to look into the different visa's now & will post my results.


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