# Tauranga - Cost of Living



## newadventure

Hi Everyone! 

I may have the opportunity to move to Tauranga, and have been doing some research in to the cost of living, but there is nothing better than hearing from people who physically live there rather than some 'average statistics'!

I've always looked at the move as in from what I can see, NZ is a similar price to London UK prices in terms of food etc, and my income would be similar in the two Countries too. However, I'm starting to panic a little after seeing the recent news articles about the area being 'severely unaffordable', and now more expensive housing wise than Auckland in relation to wages.

My income would potentially be $110k, but we would only have one wage until my partner found a job, and I see that may take a while looking at other posts.

How does everyone else find the cost of living out there? I know the place has many other benefits, just trying to get my head over the affordability if we take the plunge and move.

Many Thanks in Advance


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## escapedtonz

Hi and welcome to the forum.
I'm in Tauranga. Been here 3.5 years now.
We initially landed in Wellington and spent 2.5 years there but it didn't meet our expectations of NZ life as we had dreamed and after a couple of visits up North to the Bay Of Plenty we knew this was the place we needed to be so after being approved a work transfer we jumped at the chance and moved North. We have since bought a section and built our own house, so have definitely settled here.

Yes the cost of living is high, but it is high all over NZ. In all honesty I'd say it is slightly cheaper here overall than it was for us in Wellington as many things are slightly cheaper - e.g. fuel is around 20c per litre cheaper than in Wellington - we are closer to the refinery and Mt. Maunganui has the largest fuel storage centre in NZ. I also think other packages like internet and refuse collection etc are slightly cheaper here so as I say overall the COL seems to be slightly cheaper.

Yes housing prices are ridiculous. We were renting and longed to get on the property ladder but had to keep upping the budget since the prices just kept moving up and you've also the added competition of Aucklanders escaping the system up there, cashing in on their own investments and moving here so they are still within striking distance but instead have the money in the bank. That in itself pushes the prices up here as they have the money or asset value to pay more so in any property auction they're always gonna win.
The final straw for us was when a neighbour placed their house on the market - typical 4 bed suburban house on a little section, all refurbished and a nice garden but backing on to the main road in Bethlehem and they wanted offers over $866k. We were absolutely flabbergasted. No way we'd ever pay that sort of money for a house like that, so instead we decided to go more rural, get out of suburbia, buy some land and build our own. It was a stressful 18 months, but at the end of the day we have a much bigger new house than we would have had and we have just over an acre of mature garden to play with and have avocado and feijoa. Overall we have spent slightly less but have gained so much more and it's vale is so much higher than suburbia will ever be.

$110k is a good starting salary and affordability will be down to how much you are paying per week in rent.
We couldn't survive without the Mrs working part time and I'm on around $135k now. The Mrs works as a practise nurse and has only just (after 3.5 years) been offered and accepted permanent hours of 1.5 days per week although she is offered more hours fairly regularly but the salary she gets doesn't half take the pressure off.
Our mortgage is around $630/$640k and costs $1506 per fortnight which is just under half of my take home pay per fortnight. It's all the other things though like the rates, property insurance etc etc that makes it difficult to have that mortgage just on one wage. Yes we could have spent less but then we wouldn't have got what we wanted. We are still able to save and still able to have holidays but we do have to watch what we spend.

Happy to answer any questions. Have already assisted a few families who have moved over this way from the UK.

Cheers


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