"You don't look like axe murderers..."

Our first priority once we arrived in Wellington was to find an apartment or 'flat'. Everyone we spoke to directed us to New Zealand's equivalent of Craig's list - which is called trademe.co.nz. I had been looking at listings for a while from the States to get a sense of price points, neighborhoods and get a feel for the market, but I hadn't been able to set up many viewings ahead of time as I needed a NZ cell phone number to fill out the online forms.

New Zealand is both incredibly open and very protective at the same time. There aren't a ton of rules, but their systems really only work when you are in country and starting to get set up. For example, I needed to get a Trade Me account to save listings I was viewing, but I wasn't able to set an account up from the States because they saw my international IP address and blocked me from signing up. I emailed their generic help desk number expecting nothing to happen, but I quickly got an email back from a real person who was able to manually set up an account for me once I explained that we were moving to Wellington, but weren't in country yet.

The rental market in NZ is different to the States in a number of ways:

• Renters pay the listing agent fees. Unlike the States where the landlord does. Of course you can find some listings direct from owners who don't charge a listing fee, but these are few and far between. It seems like the listing fee is equivalent to approximately one week's rent. Which brings me to the second big difference...
• Rent is listed and charged by the week. So you will see listings for $600 or $700 but that's really $2,400 or $2,800 a month. People are really flexible on terms, you can pay your rent by the week or bi-weekly if you prefer and I suppose you can also pay monthly, but that seems to be an exception. As one of the rental agents said, does it matter if its a week or a month if someone isn't paying their rent?
• Quality of housing is... variable... I felt a little prepared for this as everything I read mentioned how cold NZ homes can be, that a lot of rentals aren't well insulated and the cost of electricity is high. That said, I was still surprised by the variability of quality within the same price point. We looked at a little new construction home on top of a hill with a lovely view about 12-15 minutes from work for $500 a week and then a dreadful inner city flat with a view of warehouses and the road for $480 a week. The photos below were for a lovely but rather expensive place with incredible views over the bay.

• Listing photos are... entertaining... When we listed our house in Alexandria for rent, we removed a ton of stuff, staged some of the rooms and had a professional photographer come and take pictures. Now maybe we went a little overboard, but we wanted to find a good renter and we were asking a fair bit of money. In comparison, the listing photos in NZ often have unmade beds, almost ALL of the toilet seats are up, dirty dishes are in the sink, clothing may be draped on chairs or the floor and there is just a huge amount of 'stuff' around.  
• Security deposit is called a 'bond'. It seems around 2-3 weeks rent is the norm for the bond and it is held in what we would called escrow - or an independent account. Same as in the US, this is returned at the end of the rental period.
• Lease periods are variable. We came across lots of six month leases, a few one year leases and even some 2-3 month leases. A lot of people go over seas for a month or two and lease out their home while they are gone. 
• Background checks and credit checks are... optional... We came prepared with copies of our visas, employment offer letters, bank statements from the US, letter from our mortgage company showing we had paid every month on time but no one asked for a single thing. When we asked the realtor about back ground checks two separate guys told us "we don't really do that here, you two don't seem like axe murders so you'll be fine..." and I guess that was the approval process!

We looked in a lot of different parts of the city and surrounding areas. From Seatoun, Miramar and Mount Vic on the East of the City, to Te Aro, Thorndon and Brooklyn in the middle and Karori, Kelburn and Crofton Downs on the West. We were concerned about commute time and traffic but after testing out the runs during 'rush hour' in the morning, we discovered that google map's version of red on the traffic map here generally means 'slow down a bit for this corner' or 'there's a traffic light'. We also found, like in England, one continuous street (admittedly a twisty turny one) can have as many as half a dozen names depending on which bit of it you're on. Nothing is straight, the streets are super narrow in places and people park on the road all over the place making it a bit like a terrifying video game to navigate around the city. Fortunately I learned to drive in the UK, so its been a bit more natural for me than Chris. 

In the end we settled for a cute little duplex flat in Crofton Downs. Partially furnished and just up the hill from the train station in to town. Its not the most exciting part of town, but its a nice place, pretty view, easy and cheap and will give us six months to get our feet under ourselves until we either decide to stay there or find somewhere closer into town. We do have an extra room, so we're ready for you to come visit!