 Hey welcome back to my channel guys. Today we're going to talk about housing. I'm getting this question all the time about what are the houses like here in New Zealand. So today I'm going to overview some of the things that I have noticed over the last seven years as to the differences between the housing in New Zealand compared to the US. Here we go. So if you don't know me we are a family of six that have moved to New Zealand from the US and have been in New Zealand for seven years. If you are thinking about moving or traveling or spending any sort of significant time in New Zealand reach out to me at KiwiAmericans.com because I help people move here and get settled. I have an amazing training hub that teaches you everything you need to know about engaging this culture and then also you can meet one-on-one with me if you just have questions so check it out if that's helpful to you. Today we're going to talk about housing in New Zealand compared to the US. So the first thing that I'm gonna need to touch on and we're just gonna get this out of the bag to begin with is the housing in New Zealand is expensive. But the good news is is that the prices are definitely going down. In fact I have been renting my entire time here in New Zealand but now I'm looking for housing. So I am recording all of that information and I will do a video on what it's like buying house here because let me tell you it's different. I'm talking to agents all the time I have no idea what these words are what this means so I will be doing a video to help you with this once I've gone through the entire process and let you know. So it is expensive prices have gone up really a lot in New Zealand actually let me get my notes because I wrote down the average price for a house in New Zealand right now is 991,000 which is just under a million dollars but that's in New Zealand dollars so in US dollars it's like 550,000. In the US though the average price is 348,000 that's total in the US obviously there's cheaper parts and more expensive parts but in New Zealand dollars that's 618,000 so there is quite a discrepancy in terms of you know how expensive a house is but just like in the US or New Zealand you can buy a cheaper property you can buy more expensive properties but in general that's going to be your biggest expense here in New Zealand. But what I've talked to a lot of my clients about is that there are some interesting ways of which you can reduce your housing costs and so there are ways because it is a different culture here like having a border is very normal a lot of the houses have outbuildings where you could rent out and then that helps on the cost of your mortgage every month and so there's there are definitely some options that make it cheaper which I have done myself I have Airbnb to room or I've had a border stay with me I've had a lot of things and it helps really reduce the price and you can so you can still have a bigger house nicer house but keep your costs down so there's lots of options but the number one thing I just wanted to get that out there the difference is it's quite expensive to buy a house here in New Zealand. The second thing I want to talk about is the heating now I know I've said this in so many videos but we just have to put out like the big ones so the biggest difference I think for an American coming and buying a house or renting a house in New Zealand is the heating so the way that they heat their house here heat pumps gas heating fireplace wood burning electric heat so it's very different now the U.S. is a big place so how houses are heated is different across the country I'm from the Midwest so we are in like below zero weather in the winter and so we all have furnaces like there's no way you could ever get away with I mean I guess I did have a house in the U.S. I had in the Midwest that had electric heat but it was not good and was very expensive but so yeah so in general you're going to notice that people are more comfortable living cold in the winter like compared to what you're used to in like the U.S. or Canada but yeah so be aware of the heating system so when you're coming here and you're looking for a house you're renting a house you're buying a house pay attention to the heating look for central heat now New Zealand is improving immensely they're putting in rules for landlords in terms of insulation levels and some other requirements in terms of heating so it's much better all the newer homes are much better but you know it's gonna take a while to get there because there's still a lot of houses that the heating is you know in my opinion no thank you you know especially with more people like working from home or being home a lot more often like that's really gonna matter because it's just you don't want to be cold like when you're typing and like having I used to have like gloves on that had my fingers coming out to type because it was so cold so yeah and then I mean there's ways around it you can have personal heat they have those hot water things like rubber things that they put on your lap or in your bed and so they have all the things or we could just heat our houses you know where it's more so yeah they're getting here in New Zealand but I just wanted to point out heating is a big difference in addition to the heating another difference is air conditioning like I've never seen an air conditioner here in the US you know we have it really cold in the winter in the Midwest and really hot in the summer and so everybody has an air conditioner at least a window air conditioner in a room so I'm sure that there's parts of New Zealand that would have air conditioning so maybe comment below if you do because I actually don't know this but it's not a common thing because it's just not it's not a tropical climate so it's it's not that hot you know like in the Wellington region you're not gonna get hotter than say 75 78 Fahrenheit here during the summer like you're not getting that 88 90 you know 100 degrees Fahrenheit in New Zealand and so you know so there's no need for the air conditioning so I just want to point out that's another difference air conditioning another difference is screens in windows in New Zealand they don't have all of the bugs so there's no screens in the windows so that was like one thing I really noticed or like a screened-in porch I mean I think I've seen that a little bit but like yeah they don't have like all the but they have bugs but it's not the same level it's not as many bugs so can just imagine living without the screens like people say oh there's annoying you know sand flies and different bugs here in New Zealand it doesn't compare to where I'm from in terms of mosquitoes and just all of the flies and just everything no need for screens in New Zealand so it's really nice you can open your window and it's just like actually you know no screen and having to deal with that so that's a big difference for me another big difference between the housing in New Zealand compared to the US what I've noticed is like the roofing material so in the Midwest anyway in the US I think it's different like in California is asphalt shingles is what generally people use you know and they last 30 years or whatever but here like if I look I'm up on a hill if I look out my window I'm gonna see tile I'm gonna see a lot of the roof tiles clay sheet metal you know more roofing that's more sustainable for a longer period of time and it looks really nice you are gonna see asphalt shingles here in New Zealand not sure that's what you call them here actually but they do have them here but I'm just saying I see them very not very common I don't know I'm just looking down and I'm seeing like a lot of flat roofs and metal roofs and clay tiles and so that's interesting just noticing that the roofing material is quite different another big difference between the housing in US compared to New Zealand is that every house in the neighborhood is a different style like you'll find in the US that they just decide to design a whole development and all the houses look the same and they all maybe have a couple different colors or some of them have an extra bathroom or but essentially when you're driving around that neighborhood it's cookie cutter like they're all the same and that's one of the things I hate about the US and it's not everywhere but there's a lot of big developments everybody has the same exact house or that you know with some small variations and here that's not the case like in my neighborhood every you go walk by every single house not one thing is the same different siding different roofing different style different size different look to it and so totally varies so I can see why you know doing the cookie cutter makes sense for efficiency and getting a lot out very quickly and I'm seeing that more with the new home builds here in New Zealand but like yeah yeah it's everybody was like everything's like a custom design everything is different so I mean you do have things that are more cookie cutter but it's not common like I can just look through the whole family right now and every house is different all right let's talk about basements so in the Midwest basements are a big thing basements are like if you're in a ranch style house which is one story house and you have a basement so you basically double the size of your house so you have a basement underground that is just as big as you know the top and it's like you know people make romp rooms and you know bars and like huge it just adds a lot of square footage to your house now I know that there's states Texas they don't have basements you know there's all the different weather reasons why people do or do not have basements but it's not really a thing here in New Zealand there's a lot of houses that you will enter on you know on the ground floor but then you go down and then like the bedrooms are underneath or you know like that but it's not like talked about like a basement or an extra room and I've seen I've walked through a couple houses that have like extra rooms below but like basements aren't a thing like it's like a whole industry in the US like let me build you your entertainment basement and your man cave and and whatever and so it's not quite the same here now this one isn't totally related to housing the kind of what I really like about New Zealand because we don't have the harsh winters like I'm used to you have blooms all year now I'm sure parts of the US that's the case as well but like for me like I'm not a gardener let's be honest but I do like to have some and then the US in the middle excuse me in the Midwest it didn't always make a lot of sense because you'd the summer would start you would get all your blooms out and then they would all you know just get buried under the snow and you'd have to start all over again in the spring and it just was beautiful I thought like this is a waste of time but here like all year you're popping up other beautiful flowers and and you know things in season fruit trees everywhere and it's just really nice and it's to me way more worth it and so like gardening is a huge thing in New Zealand people are very passionate about gardening there's garden tours gone on them they're amazing what people are doing and it's because it's something that they can develop all year I used to live in a house where the garden was amazing and it was he designed it in a way where like every month every couple weeks all new blooms were coming up in season so you always had something it was just amazing so I appreciate that about New Zealand another thing that you will see in New Zealand homes that aren't as common in the US are clothes lines like almost every house that I've moved into that I've been to have a clothes line because most people hang their clothes outside and that dryers aren't as big of a thing people do have them you know it's just not as common like it just isn't common like even when you go to airbnb is that give you you know some pegs to hang your clothes because like that's where people try their clothes and so in the US there's lots of like subdivisions that don't even allow you to have those because they don't like the look of people's clothes hanging outside or you know that sort of thing so but then there's places that do have it I'm just saying way more common in New Zealand compared to the US and the last big difference that I'm going to mention today is the appliances so like the houses are just going to be smaller in general and so are the appliances people don't buy food in bulk they don't have the need for these huge refrigerators people kind of just buy week to week or day to day and so just smaller refrigerators smaller ovens and it's all fine you know we don't need bigger isn't always better right this is what we're learning and so they just have everything just a scale down a bit very efficient you will always have a electric kettle in a New Zealand home which isn't always popular in the US they do have them a lot of people will boil water in the kettle on the stove as opposed to an electric one in the US but you always will have an electric kettle in a New Zealand home so that's a distinguishing feature but yeah so everything is just a little bit smaller and but still really nice you can still get a really nice house here and it's a different style and a different feel but still really good well I hope you enjoyed the video this week please comment below and let me know some of the differences you've noticed or things that you were like I wish they had this that I'm used to in the US or things that you really have come to appreciate about homes in New Zealand I would love to hear it I will see you guys next week