anything worth moving back to nz from australia?

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calm

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#323861 27-Jan-2026 10:06

I am trying to work out the logistics of moving back to nz from west-west island (regional western australia).... 😭

Has anyone got some recent experience/thoughts on what (if anything) is worth shipping to nz? Personal items like books. computers and clothes are in, but then where to draw the line?

In some ways it is easier to "just bring it" assuming the cost of moving/storing it is less than replacing the items (organising quotes right now but that raised this general question of what to include), some of them will be returning to where I got them... but the time and effort to replace needs to be considered too.

In other ways it is possibly easier to try to sell but it would be more likely to assume I would be giving away everything- because not many people seem to want seccond hand things and selling online seems to be loaded with spam and scammers with few genuine buyers..

Then there is the 'somewhere in between' these two options and then how to work out where to draw the line...

Also curious about any companies to recommend or avoid? I used allied last time and I think the insurance claim for the stuff that got damaged ended up as more than the moving costs- but that was a decade ago and the local depots are different this time and both actually get better reviews than most?

Goosey

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#3456364 27-Jan-2026 10:44

Deffo not any gas bottles and large batteries.

probally want to leave the car behind unless that’s gonna cost you more to replace.

fridges, tv, microwave…. Furniture…easy to put in the container right?

Wheelbarrow01

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#3456530 27-Jan-2026 22:36

Not sure if this is helpful or not, but the total cost to move my belongings from Sydney to Christchurch back in 2010 was NZ$5377 through Crown Worldwide (yay for never deleting emails LOL).

The total volume was 10 cubic metres (approximately 1/3rd of a standard 20ft shipping container). Items I moved back included a 3 piece lounge suite + ottoman, 6 seater dining table/chairs, a large bookcase, a large tv cabinet and 5-6 boxes of personal effects & small electrical goods.

I had bought the reasonably high-end furniture at cost price (I was family friends with the shop owner), so for me it was worth it to bring it all home, and I still have all the furniture today. You may not see the same value proposition, but in my case the purchase price + cost to ship was less than buying similar furniture back in NZ.

I'm thinking if 10 cubic metres was NZ$5377 to ship from Sydney to Christchurch 16 years ago, It's a fair bet the same volume being moved from Western Australia to NZ today will be substantially more than that.

SepticSceptic

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#3456531 27-Jan-2026 22:42

Marie Kondo it. If it doesn't bring you joy, don't ship it.

There maybe quite a few sentimental items, but do remember that these items are sentimental only to yourself. Your next of kin will probably bin it.

Books, unless they're valuable first editions, rethink those. They're heavy, and add up significantly to shipping.

Sometimes it's just better to start off afresh, new home, new stuff, unburdened

ascroft

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#3456544 28-Jan-2026 05:55

I reckon it’s all or nothing.

That is, what can come with you on the plane or a house lot.

My guess is a house lot to be $20k - that’s standard 3 bedroom and pretty much everything. I moved inter island in NZ for $12k last March.

Key question is are you planning to move to a property broadly similar in size and style with what you have there? That’s a factor.

Also how much of your stuff is end of life or close to it. Thinking appliances, mattresses etc.

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Eva888

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#3456622 28-Jan-2026 08:58

Definitely wouldn’t bother with books. How many are you going to read again. I have some sitting on the shelf that have been gathering dust for 20 years. Furniture…price a house lot at IKEA and compare with the cost of bringing yours over plus the cost to store it once it’s arrived while you are looking to find a place to live.

When we thought about moving to Oz I did a mental house clean up and decided it wasn’t worth the hassle of taking anything except culled clothes and some sentimental items. Starting off fresh is easiest. Different climate also requires changing clothing choices so that’s another consideration when bringing back stuff you may never wear here.

The more things you have the heavier you feel mentally. A fresh start and the joy of new things is uplifting.

floydbloke

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#3456624 28-Jan-2026 09:20

Eva888:

... Furniture…price a house lot at IKEA and compare with the cost of bringing yours over plus the cost to store it once it’s arrived while you are looking to find a place to live. ...

But when doing the maths don't forget to also include the cost of disposing of the stuff you're not planning to take. (Transport & landfill or the mental cost of trying to sell stuff and having to deal with.....people.)

Sometimes I use big words I don't always fully understand in an effort to make myself sound more photosynthesis.

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Eva888

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#3456628 28-Jan-2026 09:28

floydbloke:

Eva888:

... Furniture…price a house lot at IKEA and compare with the cost of bringing yours over plus the cost to store it once it’s arrived while you are looking to find a place to live. ...

But when doing the maths don't forget to also include the cost of disposing of the stuff you're not planning to take. (Transport & landfill or the mental cost of trying to sell stuff and having to deal with.....people.)

I would call in a charity to take the lot and console myself with the fact that someone will get a lot of joy. Easy to do in NZ but unsure if Oz has this luxury.

calm

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#3456638 28-Jan-2026 10:28

Wheelbarrow01:

Not sure if this is helpful or not, but the total cost to move my belongings from Sydney to Christchurch back in 2010 was NZ$5377 through Crown Worldwide (yay for never deleting emails LOL).

The total volume was 10 cubic metres (approximately 1/3rd of a standard 20ft shipping container). Items I moved back included a 3 piece lounge suite + ottoman, 6 seater dining table/chairs, a large bookcase, a large tv cabinet and 5-6 boxes of personal effects & small electrical goods.

I had bought the reasonably high-end furniture at cost price (I was family friends with the shop owner), so for me it was worth it to bring it all home, and I still have all the furniture today. You may not see the same value proposition, but in my case the purchase price + cost to ship was less than buying similar furniture back in NZ.

I'm thinking if 10 cubic metres was NZ$5377 to ship from Sydney to Christchurch 16 years ago, It's a fair bet the same volume being moved from Western Australia to NZ today will be substantially more than that.

This is a good data point. Thank you!

calm

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#3456639 28-Jan-2026 10:31

SepticSceptic:

Marie Kondo it. If it doesn't bring you joy, don't ship it.

There maybe quite a few sentimental items, but do remember that these items are sentimental only to yourself. Your next of kin will probably bin it.

Books, unless they're valuable first editions, rethink those. They're heavy, and add up significantly to shipping.

Sometimes it's just better to start off afresh, new home, new stuff, unburdened

Sometime yes but the financial, mental and time cost of starting new is not small...

calm

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#3456640 28-Jan-2026 10:34

ascroft:

I reckon it’s all or nothing.

That is, what can come with you on the plane or a house lot.

My guess is a house lot to be $20k - that’s standard 3 bedroom and pretty much everything. I moved inter island in NZ for $12k last March.

Key question is are you planning to move to a property broadly similar in size and style with what you have there? That’s a factor.

Also how much of your stuff is end of life or close to it. Thinking appliances, mattresses etc.

yeah I keep coming back to all of nothing (easier to orgainise mentally and physically). Most stuff here is post 2019 purchase and well looked after so in that vague zone of worth shipping vs life (on the appliances)...

calm

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#3456641 28-Jan-2026 10:40

floydbloke:

Eva888:

... Furniture…price a house lot at IKEA and compare with the cost of bringing yours over plus the cost to store it once it’s arrived while you are looking to find a place to live. ...

But when doing the maths don't forget to also include the cost of disposing of the stuff you're not planning to take. (Transport & landfill or the mental cost of trying to sell stuff and having to deal with.....people.)

yeah the costs to off load everything is considerable- there is no easy/nice way as I can tell right now.

I have already got some replacement estimates togeteher but then the one ikea piece of furniture I do have and would like is not available to purchase in nz, so that is why I was asking here

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wellygary

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#3456642 28-Jan-2026 10:43

TBH until you know what it will cost to

a) ship everything, and b)just the minimum we're all just spit-balling in the dark,

If the difference is 10K and you've got 40K worth of goods its worth doing,
If the cost is 20K and you stuff is only worth 19K to replace , well then I think that's your answer...

Scott3

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#3456845 28-Jan-2026 22:54

Just did a similar trip in the other direction (sea freight is still on its way route).

With hindsight we freighted too much stuff.

Information on the cost cost of freight can be hard to source. Crown went through our house and quoted "Yes" items, with an optional add on for "Mabey" items. So essentially two datapoints only. hard to deduce, exactly how much it is going to cost to ship the TV to decide if is worth taking.

Key questions are:

How much time do you have available before the move?
- Selling stuff is time consuming. Geekzone is good for stuff with fairly broad appeal to the demographic, and is an obvious bargain. . It's fairly quick to list, but you only really get a 24 hour period where there is likelyhood to sell. And without a excrow service, every sale means arranging a time to meet etc. I avoided facebook marketplace this time - The few items I had on their took disproportionate time, ultimately not selling on that platform. Trademe is effective (and accepting the 2% additional ping fees means buyers have already paid, and are much better to deal with), but the interface is so slow for high volumes of listing's. Takes 5+ mins (plus any clean up and photography) to do a listing. We had two accounts (two adults, so legit) with their max of 50 listings each for a while. This represents many hours of listing, Plus question answering, and either arranging for buyer pickup, or packaging for courier pickup.
- We had about 10 weeks, was still a struggle working full time.
Would you DIY the move. Get a full container etc. Or use a full service paying by the m^3.
- If you are getting a container, your marginal cost of adding extra stuff is near zero (until you need to step up to a 40 footer). If you are paying by volume, as below, adding two office chairs to our shipment was going to cost close to NZD 1000
How valuable is your stuff.
- As an example, I was unable to sell my two nice office chairs, so got a price to ship them. Was going to add nearly a thousand dollars to the freight cost. Gave then away to family, and purchased the same brand of used chair here for $150 AUD each.
- If you are paying by volume, it is unlikely anything bulky (furniture, appliances etc), that is not high end will be finically viable to ship.
- High ends stuff (which often has poor resale in the used market) can be worthwhile.
How are you going to live before the move.
- The combination of being busy at work & selling stuff meant we booked our movers two days before our departure (maximize time for getting stuff sorted).
- Camping for two days with no stuff kinda sucked, but so be it. If you have family nearby you could stay with that would be better.
- Listed cars for sale about two weeks out. Larger car (towbar etc) sold quickly, I put an available date on this, and got the buyer to pay a deposit, and the balance when they picked the car up the day before departure. Sold smaller car about a week out, and just lived with one car for that time.
- If you are able to housesit or something for two months prior to your departure, and ship everything to beat you to your destination that would be ideal.
- Suggest having minimal camping time at one end (whichever you think is better.)
How are you going to live after the move?
- Realistically going to take 8+ weeks for your stuff to turn up (depending on shipping schedules, customs delays etc.)
- Ideally, take a two month holiday to another place, but that was not viable for us during this busy & expensive period.
- Have you secured accommodation. We used a relocation agent to view rental properties for us, and were able to secure a rental property a couple of weeks before our arrival. Super nice arriving to your new home, not a hotel. Slept on the floor the first night.
- We rented a car for a week (and purchased on at the end of that period) - with Hindsight, this should have been near the top priority. Ultimately ended well, but we did need to rush the process. Note that new car's have a lead time (especially recently released, and popular models). One can't simply walk in the BYD showroom, slap down some money, and drive home in a Atto 1... Along with cost, this pushed us to a used car.
- Before we left, we ordered a set of plates & drinking glasses to be delivered to a package locker nearby, so we were able to pick up immediately. (got ones matching our main set, rather than cheapies to throw out later. Living with 4 plates, 4 bowls etc untill our freight turns up.
- We brough mattress on the day after our arrival. Rushed purchase which resulted in us overpaying as we only went to two shops, and only considered in stock options (but at least they are very comfortable). mattress industry is super high margin. If I had of spend a couple of hours on the internet researching (and not needed same day pickup), I would have either gone Ikea, or from an Ebay vendor that people rave about here in Aust.
- Are you willing to buy a lot of stuff to tide you over untill your freight turns up, and live with cheep crap until them (wife did not jell with our $5 kmart kettle, so now we have a flash kettle (purchased used), and another flash one coming with our freight.
Who is picking up the cost of the move (work helping?)
How much time have you got to sort stuff on arrival.
- Depending on how fussy you are shopping for an entire new set of possessions can be mighty time consuming. (Some of this depends on how much money you are willing to spend. Quite viable to go to Harvey normal, and get a house lot of furniture and appliances in under two hours. But this is not the case with sourcing good used stuff.

Some tips:

Some gear has brilliant resale (such as golf gear right now) - Sold my clubs for more than I paid for them and used to opportunity to change firm regular to stiff shafts (on the same set).
The difference in sales tax means everything should be a touch cheaper in austrialia
Consider ordering a skip. I was hopeful I wouldn't need one, but ended renting a cargo van and doing a dump run the morning of our departure flight.
Some stuff is super hard to sell. We had a really nice L shaped desk, and a kitesurfing kite, bar and lines that ended up in the trash.
Some things can't be freighted:
- Lawnmowers (biosecurity risk)
- Aerosol cans (hazardous goods)
Used cars (with a handful of exemptions) are worth a heap more in Aust than NZ, And in General NZ has a better selection of used cars.
- We would have been roughly break even shipping and selling our cars hear vs selling them in NZ. But figured it was time for an upgrade anyway (and didn't want to wait around for them to arrive), so sold them in NZ.
- Some exemptions to this are the falcon / commodore which are somewhat abundant here. Old Nissan patrols also seem abundant here. Stuff like the Toyota Prado 150 with the Rear Mounted spare tire, and factory 150L fuel tank is common here, but in NZ they were only sold with the flat tailgate pack (80L fuel tank).
- A relative did the same shift back from Aust, and brought their near new mazda 3 with them. so it can work in some cases to ship cars.
- Aust imports are stigmatized in NZ as such a large proportion of them are write off vehicles that were declared unrepairable in Aust.
Perfect opportunity to refresh your stuff. Time to get rid of that 10 year old computer monitor, 15 year old bed etc.
- Be aware of the cost of doing this all at once (especially if you generally by nicer stuff). Sell a bed for $100, spend $1500 on a new one, Sell that 27" 1440p monitor for $70. Spend $900 on a 32" UHD replacement with build in docking station etc...
Great time to thin down possessions. We are doing fine with the clothes we brought on the plane with us. While we did thin down, Kind of dreading having 55 shipping boxes of stuff turn up.
You want a lot of stuff to come with you on the plane. Jetstar lets you pick up to 40 kG each, and paid nearly $300 excess on top of that. Consider flying business or first class for the extra luggage (worked out too expensive in our case).
To see stuff in a hurry, you need to take a bit of a bath on price, that is just how it is.
You aren't going to be able to replicate what you had previously.
It has been really nice living with a very limited amount of stuff.

calm

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#3457201 30-Jan-2026 10:58

Scott3 - this is brilliant thank you for replying. exactly the sort of thoughts and questions I was chasing.

calm

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#3466693 4-Mar-2026 12:38

Following on from this, if I sell my car on the way out of Aus, are there 'better' cities/places for car shopping? For a good range of options, I suspect it will be a second hand car (as in kind to my budget), but I am watching that EV thread about cheap new electric MGs.

Probably end up back in Nelson/Tasman to live but flying into Auckland so could be anywhere to find a car. I am on my own timeline.