I went to Uni there in the late 80’s. I hope it was not my fault that Dunedin started to go downhill then.
I really enjoyed my time there though, as a scarfie.
No they do not live on a “ranch”.
Yeah, I was thinking of saying that too. Either a farm, or a station. Not a ranch.
I always think that too. Unless you open with “we’re eligible for immigration” it’s kind of a pointless exercise.
As for me, New Zealand is a no-go because of the earthquakes and volcanoes. Don’t bother telling me about odds; phobias don’t listen to reason. 
Having hung around these boards for cough cough years, I think I recognise enough about long-time poster Malden_Capell to assume he knows he’ll need to research immigration rules. He’s just asking what it’s like to live there.
I know many people who have either emigrated there from the UK, moved to the UK from NZ (there’s a lot of them in London), or done a bit of both (my Kiwi boss was born in the UK, grew up in NZ, worked in London, went back to NZ for a few years, and is now back ‘permanently’ in the UK). All these people generally have a very positive view of life in NZ, and the ones who don’t want to go back tend to be ones who find it a bit quiet and distant compared to the social life and Europe-accessibility of the UK. So, it depends on what kind of lifestyle you enjoy. There’s a lot of people who talk about retiring back to NZ, presumably when they think they’ll be tired of living in a big noisy place.
Americans blithely assuming they can move to {wherever} is silly / ignorant as you say.
Europeans and Commonwealth folks have much lower barriers to entry to a lot more places and tend to be more aware of what those barriers are.
True. After I finished my degree in NZ, it was made very clear to me by NZ immigration that I had 60 days to leave the country. Period. There was no option to stay, other than on a tourist visa.
A day before the election, my Facebook feed featured someone interviewing Trumpers about a Biden presidency. They were, as expected, outraged at the very idea, they raged on a bit about fake news and stolen ballots, but emphatically announced if Biden won they were, ‘moving to Canada!’
Say what now? How can that make sense?
It makes exactly as much sense as their other decision: to vote for Trump. Ignorance through and through.
Is she going with you? No? Hmmm…
My sister and her husband. They’ve bought the house from his family, they’re working (in Australia) until retirement.
Okay, farm, whatever. It’s not, say, a small apartment.
Kiwi’s do have shortages in certain skilled labor areas.
Here is a site that allows you to search if your skills are a match. If they are, getting a permanent visa is much easier.
It looks like you can’t get enough points unless you have a job lined up in NZ.
+1
Devious things, those Kiwis.
The median house price in Auckland has just hit $1,000,000 (NZD). Median house prices across the country are up 20% in a year and are sitting at $725,000. It will help bringing in GBP or USD but it is still expensive.
We just bought a house and I’m happy we did it when we did. We had thought that the COVID situation would put significant downward pressure on house prices as people lost jobs, couldn’t afford mortgages, and looked to sell, but this hasn’t happened at all.
Amused, smiling quietly to myself.
I’ve never been to either country, but FWIW the UK is still next to Europe if not a part of it politically. NZ is somewhat isolated globally (with the exception of Australia) at least in comparison. So in NZ you’d lose easy access to over a dozen nearby countries with different cultures, languages, history, etc. America is somewhat similar in that regard, though just traveling from one state to the next can mean significant changes in geography.
Anyway, global remoteness is the one thing that would give me pause, but that’s just me. If I lived in southern England I’d be crossing over to the Continent at least a few times a year just to visit the art museums (not that the UK doesn’t also have excellent ones).
This is not true. NZ is totally isolated … and long may that last.
A few years ago now Kiwiland decided that they were not going to maintain a navy and other arms of the conventional military service.
There were numerous vocal critics, including Australia who were hoping to sell them some hardware, whose argument was that without an navy etc NZ would become strategically irrelevant.
This was very well refuted by the proponents who said NZ was strategically irrelevant.
Which gives me another excuse to post: Gruen: Australia’s Invade New Zealand Day
Dudes, I want to remind you that moving to a nation to permanently live and work there is not easy. Every nation (that one would want to move to)has rules on immigration. You cant just pick someplace that looks nice and became a resident.