Moving to Tauranga from Auckland

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RustedEquipment

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#217941 19-Jul-2017 13:17

Hi everyone,
Just got offered a full time job in Tauranga and before I committed.how is living in Tauranga. Places to avoid or to live? Worth the move? Good areas to eventually buy a house?

wife is a teacher in Auckland and may apply for a teacher role in Tauranga, but not hopeful as I heard those jobs in Tauranga are hard to come by but we don't need two salaries as we have no kids plus rental property in Auckland.

Any help will be appreciated. Sorry if this has been covered recently.

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#1825160 19-Jul-2017 13:24

Bought a house there about 7 years ago in the Pyes Pa area. Good location and not near the Mount to be first to welcome the giant tidal wave. Be careful of some of the new areas being built on what I would call a flood plane (The Lakes comes to mind) House prices are going up rapidly..

Fiber broadband should not be a problem as I Tauranga is all done.

Regards,

Old3eyes

xpd

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#1825187 19-Jul-2017 13:38

Friends moved down there last year, they like the area but don't like a lot of the council changes etc..... for example, they could walk into an Auckland library and take out 15 books, no questions asked, all for free. In Tauranga there's a fee on each book and they limit how many books you can borrow. Then there was some issue with their dog registration which dragged out for a few months.... and other things.

Its not always the obvious things that end up making somewhere a bit frustrating to live at times ;) So if there's any services provided by Auckland council that you use and think will be the same, might want to check into it first.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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wellygary

8321 posts

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#1825200 19-Jul-2017 13:45

xpd:

Friends moved down there last year, they like the area but don't like a lot of the council changes etc..... for example, they could walk into an Auckland library and take out 15 books, no questions asked, all for free. In Tauranga there's a fee on each book and they limit how many books you can borrow.

Sounds like your friends might be slightly misrepresenting the situation :),

TCC charge $2 for new release books, magazines and DVDs, they call them "top titles" and limit them to 2 weeks,

but for everything else its free.... (upto 3 weeks) - you can have out up to 40 items at a time

http://library.tauranga.govt.nz/explore/ask-suggest-or-request/what-can-i-borrow.aspx

RustedEquipment

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1825203 19-Jul-2017 13:50

@old3eys Pyes Pa does look nice. what do you think about Papamoa beach towards Kaituna river (lot of building happening over there it seems) or Welcome bay?

@Runnin thanks for that info. I agree, lot of small yet obvious things get missed until you actually move there. get my books of Amazon and have no dogs (but may do), this is good info. Did your friends mention anything about ease of meeting new people there or the social aspect in Tauranga? we are both 29 yr old.

WyleECoyoteNZ

1049 posts

Uber Geek

#1825210 19-Jul-2017 13:55

My folks are in Papamoa, towards the end it's almost Te Puke!

Where they are is nice, quite, 10 minutes by car to the main supermarket's area. 5 minute walk to the beach.

They commented about fast rising prices too, going up very quickly.

Eastern link\expressway makes it easy to get south, or north.

old3eyes

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#1825212 19-Jul-2017 13:57

RustedEquipment:

@old3eys Pyes Pa does look nice. what do you think about Papamoa beach towards Kaituna river (lot of building happening over there it seems) or Welcome bay?

@Runnin thanks for that info. I agree, lot of small yet obvious things get missed until you actually move there. get my books of Amazon and have no dogs (but may do), this is good info. Did your friends mention anything about ease of meeting new people there or the social aspect in Tauranga? we are both 29 yr old.

Papamoa Beach is OK but don't give much for your chances in an earthquake, liquefaction and big tidal wave.

Regards,

Old3eyes

Dairyxox

1594 posts

Uber Geek

#1825260 19-Jul-2017 14:35

They're not terrible, but I'd avoid Gate Pa, and Merivale/Parkvale. Make them bottom of your list of suburbs to choose from.

There are a few dodgy streets around Owens Park Welcome Bay, and around Bayfair/Arataki, but the greater area is very good in general.

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xpd

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#1825308 19-Jul-2017 15:12

wellygary:

Sounds like your friends might be slightly misrepresenting the situation :),

TCC charge $2 for new release books, magazines and DVDs, they call them "top titles" and limit them to 2 weeks,

but for everything else its free.... (upto 3 weeks) - you can have out up to 40 items at a time

http://library.tauranga.govt.nz/explore/ask-suggest-or-request/what-can-i-borrow.aspx

Interesting....might have to poke them about that, they were spewing that they couldn't get the same sort of service as Auckland.... :D

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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RustedEquipment

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1825310 19-Jul-2017 15:13

Dairyxox:

They're not terrible, but I'd avoid Gate Pa, and Merivale/Parkvale. Make them bottom of your list of suburbs to choose from.

There are a few dodgy streets around Owens Park Welcome Bay, and around Bayfair/Arataki, but the greater area is very good in general.

that's good info. Early research does make me lean towards Pyes Pa, Papamoa or Palm spring development but i see house prices are almost Auckland levels.

where are the best areas for schools to bring up kids eventually or all schools in Tauranga pretty decent? (initial search showed Decile 7 ish+ for most of them)

vexxxboy

4244 posts

Uber Geek

#1825331 19-Jul-2017 15:30

the problem with Tauranga is that it was a city of 50,000 people and now it has 100,000 in basically the same area,it cant keep up with infrastructure.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

wellygary

8321 posts

Uber Geek

#1825374 19-Jul-2017 16:43

RustedEquipment:

where are the best areas for schools to bring up kids eventually or all schools in Tauranga pretty decent? (initial search showed Decile 7 ish+ for most of them)

You are gonna have to go and look at the WRO reports for each school to find out if they are any good.

The Decile ranking just means that the kids come from homes that are "well off"

It has no connection to the standard of teaching or education.....

kryptonjohn

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#1825376 19-Jul-2017 16:45

RustedEquipment:

that's good info. Early research does make me lean towards Pyes Pa, Papamoa or Palm spring development but i see house prices are almost Auckland levels.

where are the best areas for schools to bring up kids eventually or all schools in Tauranga pretty decent? (initial search showed Decile 7 ish+ for most of them)

$2.15m gets a mansion in Pye's Pa on 8000m2. In Remuera/Herne Bay/Stanley Bay/Epsom that gets you the *average* house on a 600-1000m2. $1m gets a nice modern home in Pyes Pa, in Auckland it gets you a nice modern home with a 60min commute to the CBD. Tauranga/Mount has some incredibly expensive beach front but outside of that there's no comparison.

Aredwood

3885 posts

Uber Geek

#1825378 19-Jul-2017 16:49

I know a builder there who always has problems with the water pressure from the council pipes getting really low every summer. He says he complains to the council, it is okay for a day or 2, then same problem happens again. He lives near the top of a hill which won't help. Either way it sounds like that part of the water network is overloaded during summer.

RustedEquipment

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1825389 19-Jul-2017 17:02

kryptonjohn:

RustedEquipment:

that's good info. Early research does make me lean towards Pyes Pa, Papamoa or Palm spring development but i see house prices are almost Auckland levels.

where are the best areas for schools to bring up kids eventually or all schools in Tauranga pretty decent? (initial search showed Decile 7 ish+ for most of them)

$2.15m gets a mansion in Pye's Pa on 8000m2. In Remuera/Herne Bay/Stanley Bay/Epsom that gets you the *average* house on a 600-1000m2. $1m gets a nice modern home in Pyes Pa, in Auckland it gets you a nice modern home with a 60min commute to the CBD. Tauranga/Mount has some incredibly expensive beach front but outside of that there's no comparison.

Agreed. One of the reasons of my move was the 1 hour + commute sometime, where I could be reducing my commute time to one third and being close to the beach was a bonus!. Thinking of building in Tauranga but it might just be cheaper and hassle free to buy.

FineWine

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#1825776 20-Jul-2017 11:23

Dairyxox:

They're not terrible, but I'd avoid Gate Pa, and Merivale/Parkvale. Make them bottom of your list of suburbs to choose from.

There are a few dodgy streets around Owens Park Welcome Bay, and around Bayfair/Arataki, but the greater area is very good in general.

Agree Merivale/Parkvale and Gate Pa, 19th Ave and top end of 18th Ave are rental areas with a lower socio-economic population.

I live in Greerton, very quite elderly population. A few daycare's, a great primary school (Greenpark). Close (5 min's by car, most bicycle) to Tauranga Boys and Girls Colleges. A few different denomination churches. A public swimming pool. Quite a few different ethnic eat-in or take aways. Library & RSA. Tauranga race course. A selection of Doctors and Dentists and pharmacy's. A small Countdown, 5 min's to NewWorld, Mitre10 mega, at GatePa shopping centre. 10 min's to Pak-n-Save in two directions. Has the most op-shops per suburb in NZ (7 I think at last count), 3 min's to the Transfer Recycling Station. 10 to 15 min's to downtown Tauranga. 20 min's to the Mount. One hour to Cambridge or Rotorua.

Bought a 3 bedroom, double garage back section built in 2000 in 2015 and my CV has gone up by a good 20% in that time.

OH and I missed 5 min's to Tauranga hospital and 10 min's to Grace private hospital

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

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