Apartment Hunting in New Zealand
Most Kiwis that I knew owned their own homes — and during the years I lived in New Zealand, home ownership felt just as important there as it is in the U.S. — roots and family are high priority. But for many reasons, owning a house wasn’t something I was really interested in. I’d come to terms with paying rent because I loved the flexibility and freedom of living and working in the central city and being unencumbered. No responsibility, no lawns to mow, no repairs to make, an easy and consistent walk to work, and (most importantly) the ability to pick up and leave whenever we wanted and move to another city, another country, or whatever.
Apartment hunting there though was odd. I’d written about it in one of my earlier blog posts but we were preparing to shift flats (move apartments) again so it was back top of mind. We found the most wonderful apartment and moved in after only looking at three places.
In New Zealand (especially in Auckland) they schedule group viewings for apartments. You email your interest and register for the viewing, and then you show up at the designated time. Anyone else wanting to see that apartment will be there as well. It’s weird. And it sometimes brings out the competitive spirit in people because nice affordable apartments are hard to find — you wind up furtively sizing up the ‘competition’ while nonchalantly exploring the cupboards and rooms surrounded by a bunch of people you don’t know all doing the same thing.
The pic here was taken on the walkway on the way to one of the places we viewed. That apartment didn’t work for us — too small and more student focused — but it was a group viewing and was entertaining.
