Hello all.

EOI. It took me 3 days to complete mine, I printed of the paper one first to get all the info, and then did it online. If you do it online you will need to pay a fee when it is submitted, I think it works out at about £130. My EOI was selected last week, and I have now recieved my invitation to apply. Which again has loads of fees to pay. Approx £1300 for a family of 3.

As regards where to live, I am not a city person and prefer the quieter life. I also want to live close to work, I travel 36 Miles each way at the moment which is a bit of a bind. And within 10-12 miles I can do by bicycle.

My house looks like a bomb site, I am decorating every room and doing the gardens, garage and outside. It should be on the market by the middle of August, so we shall see what happens.

I am in the postion of having little equity and so will be flying by the seat of my pants for a few months. I am hoping to use being an SO to be able to get a higher wage, as there wage structure is qualification based. It all depends on what level of NVQ the exam is worth.

Foot/Scott

Hi Sue. Well i heard a lot about you even before i got on to this web-site. Tony does talk alot. I have just completed my EOI now and are about to submit it. It was horrible. Took me 4 days and i still dont know if everything i have done is right.
Anyway, about what you said Sue. I do think we should all meet up in NZ. It will be comforting to know and meet the people who are in the same position as us (us kiwi wannabe poms need to stick together).

Hi All

Thanks for replying to my questions about the EOI. We will carry on with it tomorrow as I can't tonight as my husband has been called out to a fire as he is also a retained fireman. Not that I need a man to complete it mind, but there are probably aspects of the form that her may need to be there as well to complete it.

Sorry you are up to your neck in decorating the house Scott - in all of this hot weather too. Hope you have lots of luck though in selling it.

Have any of you enquired about rental prices in or around the Te Awamutu/Hamilton areas at all?

Anyway better go to bed as it's rather late!

Regards

Suzanne

The enquiries I have made about house prices and rental in te awamutu are 200$ for a basic 3 bedroom house and rental priceas arount 250$ a week.

Scott

HI Scott

Thanks for that. Where did you go to find out this information?

Suzanne

Te Awamutu is a good rural town with a population of around 10,000. Well served with schools etc. To buy a house on the present market, you would pay $200,000 for a very basic three bedroom home. You would need 5% deposit and over a 25 year term repayments would be approximately $1673.00 per month. Rental properties rent for, on average $220.00 per week.

If you do decide to come to New Zealand, I would strongly advise renting until you are familiar with the area - prices etc.

Info from a local estate agents.

Scott

Hi Everyone,
I have now moved out of my house to put it on the market so I can't be online as often. The EOI is a nightmare to fill out Sue and it took me about 6 hours to do. If you have any questions do'nt hesitate to ask, Scott has also done one so either of us may be able to help. I was thinking of looking at Te Amanutu, (something like that), as a place to live but until either the other lad at our place gets back and recommends a place or I have a look around when I get there, (B&B to start with), I do'nt know. Hi to Robbo, glad you found the site. I have now been sent my application form but have to pick it up from the post office. It would be nice to hear anything more from Celia but she seems to have disappeared. As you say Sue we will all have to get together and have a BBQ when we get over there. I've got the house valuer comming in 5 so I had better go, see you at work Robbo, Tony

Hi All

Thanks Scott for the information, I did find a website with a webcam on Te Awamutu and it looked ok from what I could see of it. The house price and rental info was interesting too.

Tony I can't believe how quick things are moving so quickly for you and I'm really pleased. When do you expect to go?

We carried on with the form last night and are 3/4 way through it, however, it appeared that Andrew has only gathered 90 points so far. I think we must have filled it out wrong as when we sat down with the lady in immigration ( when he went for interview), he got well over 100 points and if he added his welding skills onto this (which he used to do years ago) then he had stacks of them. I shall have a look and see if we can somehow review it.

Hello to Robbo again too. What does your wife think about all of this Robbo, I'm scared but am now seriously considering it as we have almost completed the EOI. My husband really wants us to go.

Anyway see you soon and Tony hope to hear from you in a while seeing as you may not have regular internet access.

Suzanne

Hello All

Just a quickie - We have submitted the EOI (20-7-05) and are awaiting outcome. Cost was $315nzd.

Suzanne

Hi Everyone,
The NZ Prison service have said they want me in October but it all depends on when I sell my house. Thanks for the info on Te Awamutu Scott, it is somewhere I am looking at. I was looking at the Bawbee ex-pats site, (the address is at the start of this forum), and it has some intresting info on the price of containers and the best firms to use, (Does'nt affect me cos I'm going with just a suitcase and my golf clubs hopefully). The information sent with the appication pack is intresting, it gives a list of average shopping prices which includes electrical items, they seem either the same or a bit less than here. When sending off the application form you have to send all your docs. as well, which seems a bit risky to me, however if you can get a soliciter's firm to endorse photcopies with "Certified True Copies" and signed then these are accepted and it save's the risk. Well good luck with EOI's Sue and Robbo, congratulations Scott and keep the info flowing, Tony

Yeah i had a quick look through some of the info that Tony was sent after submitting his EOI. Quite interesting. Submitted mine not long back and you can check the status on the immigration site. Mine has now been selected from the pool. I'm expecting a phone call from them as i'm bound to have done something wrong on the form.
Anyway, gald to hear youv'e got yours sorted Sue. It is a bit of a nightmare.
Speak soon guys.
Robbo.

Hi Everyone

Good luck with your house Tony. When you said the info that the nz prison service sent you on buying electrical items - was this quoted as equivalent to UK prices or equivalent in $nz. ie

Washing machine $300

Thanks also Robbo about the info on the immigration site I will go and check how our app is doing.

Speak to you all soon

Suzanne

Hi Everyone,
The prices for the goods were in NZ$ and I used $2.5 to the £ to convert it Sue. Glad to hear you've been selected Robbo and I'll see you at work on Monday. Scott have you returned your application form yet? If so did you have to send the X-rays or just the form? Sue good luck on the selection but I do'nt think you'll need it. All the best Tony

Hi all,

I have got my ITA pack, but as of yet I hvae not done anything with it. My offer is for Feb, so the priority is to get the house in order to sell it. I hope to have it ready by the middle of August at the latest.

I am also spending a lot of time checking areas via the web. I have slowly been reducing the areas in which I may be interested in settling in.

Another good site for information and links is http://www.britishexpats.com
well worth a look, it has loads of useful links and others who are in the process of applying via the skilled migrant category.

Does anyone know what help the NZ service are giving to help settle us in? I know none of it is financial, but in the interview they did say there would be help when we arrive, and hopefully before we leave. But I have not got any real idea what this help intails.

Scott

Hi Scott

Sorry don't know what help nz corrections depmt will offer. They didn't mention anything about this at my husbands interview.

Where do you think you may settle. I've looked at properties via the net in Hamilton and they seem quite expensive. Saw a nice property (nothing that special although it was new and had 4 bedrooms. It was $700,000 nzd and rentals for a decent property were between $295 and $375 per week. I looked twice at this part pw and could only come to the conclusion that it must be per week as everything on all sites seem to be paid weekly including salaries. If this is the case, it does seem expensive.
I will keep looking around for other estate agencies.

Take care and please stay in touch. Do you have a family? If so how old? Ours are a 9 year old boy and a 7 yr old girl.

Suzanne

Hi guys.
Yeah my wife and I have been looking at Hamilton area, also Cambridge. We were hoping to move a little further east though, a little nearer to the east coast. I dont mind travelling further to work if we live where we want to live. We've also looked at Matamata, check it out. Some lovely houses there. We are looking for a 4 bedder, hopefully something a bit special if our budget allows it. We do have a fair bit of equity in our current house so with a bit of luck things will go to plan but i dont know if the rest of you are having the same problem, the housing market seems to have come to a stand still. Nobody seems to be buying (well in the york area anyway). Our house has been on the market nearly 3 months now (as we had it up for a sale beforehand , we were moving anyway) in this time we have had an open day where we got one elderly couple who just seem to view houses now as a hobby (according to the estate agent) and 3 weeks later a couple who straight away you could tell had no intention of buying but just wanted to be nosy and check out our decor. Supposidly according to the estate agent it isnt a price issue its just the fact that no one is buying at the mo.
I feel sorry for you people who have been offered jobs starting this year as i believe you will struggle to sell.
Anyway enough of my boring talk.
Speak to you again soon guys and gals.
Robbo

Hi Robbo

Like you, we believe that the houseing market has dropped off. In fact I know it has as I am a mortgage advisor part of the week. There are 5 houses on our street alone which are all detached and have been up for quite some time now. We also wanted to be near the coast which at the interview they said was about 50 minutes drive away.

If we decide to go (I'm still undecided yet until next week when EOI outcome will be known) we would rent out our house until the market picks up and also because if it didn't work out then we would still have the house to come home to. If we liked it after say 2 yrs then we would sell to release the equity. Mt husbands colleague who has recently started i Auckland prison has rented his house out for two yrs.

Anyway had beeter go as tea almost ready - we are late with it tonight.

Regards

Suzanne

Robbo

Sorry for the typing errors in previous reply - I didn't edit it before sending.

Suzanne

Hello all,

Like others I agree the housing market has gone quiet. I will have mine finished soon, and should be on the marked in AUG/SEP.

I am travelling with my wife and 5 year old daughter, and am looking for a more rural living than I have had here. I hope all your applications are going well, and good luck to you all!
Scott