Apartment in Auckland

Last time we finished when I mentioned that I'm moving to Mt Eden on Monday.

Hm, where do I start from? :)

Before coming to Auckland you obviously need to assure you have a place to stay for the first days. There is an opinion that it's very difficult to find a good place to live here. Most common problems associated with apartments/houses in Auckland are:

1. Demand. It is much higher than an offer if you are searching for a good place. It means that it will be more difficult for a foreigner with some kind of English and no references to compete against locals. As a result you might have to lower your expectations or get ready for a fight for your ideal apartment :)

2. Location. As was said previously, Auckland is a huge city with an area of 1086 sq.km (just to compare, Helsinki is 187 sq.km). Of course, 1086 is not a city center, but it's considered as Auckland, so you might find yourself 1000km far away from Queens street, still living in Auckland. Public transport is considered to be very poor. Can't but remember that it was said to be one of the best in the world in Helsinki. Logically, you would either have to have a car (parking is a problem) or limit your search criteria to Auckland central. This is what most young people and students do.

3. Quality of houses. Basically, they have houses here everywhere, even in the central city, so you don't have to sacrifice yourself and live in a small apartment in the huge building with 2 elevators :) BUT those houses that were build before 2000, so called "old houses", are most often of a very bad quality with thin walls and etc. It means you will be freezing in winter unless you agree on huge bills for electricity. I haven't experienced this winter situation myself, but heard from foreigners who have lived here for a while that it can be +2 in an old house in winter. Just like outside.
In other words, you narrow your search to "new houses" built according to new standards.

4. Price. They pay here per week. From my experience an average price for a room in a house/flat not far away from the center would be around 200-250 NZD per week + around 30 NZD per week for expenses (electricity, water, the Internet)
They also ask you almost always to pay a bond before you move in to make sure that you won't destroy the house or disappear without paying. Totally depends on the owner, but usually it's a 2 week rent bond.
If we take an average of 250 NZD including expenses per week times 4 number of weeks and divide by 1.5, we get 670 euros per month per room in a house in the center.
In this way it's more expensive than even in Helsinki, as you see, or is it?

5. It's more difficult to find a place if you are a couple/has a kid/smoke/have a pet. I can easily imagine all of these in one family :)

There are two main web sites where I would look for a flat:
http://www.trademe.co.nz/
Chose "flatmates wanted" or "real estate" if you are looking for a house/flat without flatmates

Or

http://www.nzflatmates.co.nz/

I personally didn't like trademe for searching because all adds look very snobby with little information, and you basically, don't know who lives there until you go and check it out. Also as a biggest disadvantage, you can register on trademe from overseas.

Nzflatemates looked much better to me because of pleasant and easy interface. Most people who want to rent a place there create their profiles and small descriptions of themselves. You can register from abroad. The web page will also offer you to upgrade for 4 dollars so your profile would be on the front page. I recommend! That way people who search for flatmates may contact you themselves.
Create a nice profile, put enough information about yourself and pictures. In other words, make such a profile that you would pick up yourself if you had a room for rent.

If you want to hear my story, a few months before coming here I booked serviced apartments in the city center through booking.com. There are quite many different companies that rent serviced apartments, but I chose Columbia because of good location and easy booking mainly.
http://www.columbiaapartment.co.nz/

I read many negative reviews from various web sites about Columbia later, but can't guess where they come from. My room is very clean, size and furniture are just okay, the bed is big and very comfortable. I share a kitchen and a bathroom with two other rooms, but basically, i never see my neighbors.
Internet will cost you extra, but it's not much.
The place is well located, just 10 minutes to Queens street and very peaceful at the same time. Staff is very friendly.

I also registered on nzflatemates back in Finland, upgraded to gold, created a good profile, told about myself and my dog, put a few pictures of her and one of me. When I was waiting for a connection flight in Hong Kong, a girl has contacted me and offered a room in the house she was moving in with her daughter. We met two days after and I absolutely liked Jen and the house, so I'm moving there on Monday.
Location of the place is very good, it's close to the city center and you can walk there by foot. In case of a need there is a bus stop just across the road. The place is called Mount Eden because there is a huge mount just next to it. This mountain is a volcano with 50 meters deep crater :)

Below are a few pictures of the place and my house from the Internet