This is South Taranaki

You may be asking who I am and why I would set up a blog about South Taranaki. Well my family decided to move from the far North of the Auckland region to somewhere that was different as well as less congested, that would offer us something different to what we had become accustomed to after almost a lifetime of watching a city grow to its limits, pushing its boundaries to places where it was not really welcome. The stress in having to travel great distances to work at places of employment that started to define who we as people are or were becoming. My wife and I worked in a Bank that while it promised certain elements, that is equal opportunities, acceptance of varied cultures and different orientations it was for all intents and purposes a closed off place that was run by the same people that had been running things for over a hundred years.

Unfortunately, we really did not know where to move to that would be any different. We had been talking about moving for years but would always hit the stumbling block of where to go? My wife has family in the lower part of the North Island and late last year we drove down for a visit and on our return journey decided to stay a few night in New Plymouth. We were curious as to house prices so checked into what those were, looking in the windows of a few real estate agencies, we were pleasantly surprised and wondered what our options were for our own home.

On returning home, this was in November of 2017 we talked for a month about what work was available as well as the realistic amount we may get for our own home. We then placed our house on the market with one agent then started hunting Trade Me for houses in New Plymouth where we figured we would move when we sold. We also started to identify what we would take with us and what we would not, then started to get rid of a bunch of possessions ranging from clothes to TVs to furniture.

Once we started looking at New Plymouth we added a lot of houses to our wishlists, we decided to be passive up until we actually had a settlement date, then we would be more aggressive, compile a shortlist then go down for a weekend, make a decision, an offer and buy a house. As we looked around in New Plymouth just online we noticed that the houses we liked on the surface all had some issue or they would be snapped up, this was not too disheartening as houses were coming on the market all the time. However at some point we started to looking further South in Taranaki and realised there was some value in maybe putting New Plymouth on the back burner and looking elsewhere. So we had a shortlist of about five houses in New Plymouth, as well as another five houses that spread all the way down to Hawera.

We then sold our house, the settlement date ended up being a long one, about eight weeks, so we drove down to New Plymouth for a weekend to buy a house. Our plan was to look at our list, visit the houses then make an offer and have the settlement on the same day as our settlement.

Seemed like a plan that could not fail, which for the most part it didn’t with some variations that we could not have anticipated.

We booked a Motel in New Plymouth and our plan was to arrive on a Thursday evening, check in and spend Friday looking around New Plymouth. We ended up arriving Thursday afternoon so we spent two hours looking around New Plymouth at our shortlisted houses and boy were we disappointed in them in person. We looked at each other after the fifth house and both thought ‘Have we just made the biggest mistake ever?’. All the houses were either a lot smaller in person, in not great neighborhoods or just in dense ones where we were just trading one dense area for another. We then decided to change our plans and drive down to Hawera, and on the way look at Stratford and Eltham.

There were some parts of both areas that we liked, I have to admit that the town of Stratford did not appeal that much, it is quite rundown, there is a very old fashioned aspect to it, as well as the main road also being the main highway which is always extremely busy. After looking at, from the outside a house we added to our list on Trade Me we decided to push on to Hawera. We had already called ahead and arranged to meet two real estate agent’s at a couple of different houses.

The first house we looked at had a large backyard was rundown inside, the second place had a small backyard and needed a lot of work, we then moved on to another real estate agent. The next house we looked at was near a school and had recently been renovated inside and out, although it had not much land with it. To be honest we loved this house, it was also on a corner section but their were only two elements that we were not sold on; the size of the section which was tiny and the size of the rooms, the two spare bedrooms were too small. We then looked at another house which had an asbestos roof which we were not completely put off by, it had the most amazing kitchen area but the living area was rather small. Then the real estate agent let us know about a house that was about to go on the market so we went around and had a look at the outside with her and to see if we could have look inside. We liked the look of the outside, but could not view until the following day so we decided return the next day to view inside.

The next day we drive back to Hawera and had a look inside the house, it was fully fenced, had three bedrooms, two of which were big, a large living area, a double garage and it was close to the town centre, we were immediately interested and put in an offer which was accepted, to be honest we paid what they wanted, we had time pressures and really wanted to know we had a home before we left to go back to out sold house.

I will not go through the moving process but I will mention that when we arrived at the house and started to live there, there were a few things that needed to be fixed, we did have a building report done, so were aware of a few things – we had a plumber come around to fix some spouting, put in a sink hole for some spouting off the garbage, cover two chimneys and clean the guttering. We also had a builder in to straighten a pile, replace the roof of the garage and treat the roof. Finally we had new curtains made for the entire house which really added something to the interior.

So we are now living in Hawera which is a part of the South Taranaki Region, this Blog is to see how we are going in a new area, making new friends, learning about the area, getting new jobs as well as a host of other things, so if you start to follow this I hope you enjoy it!