First you will have to determine your budget and what kind of house you need/want. Rent here is paid by the week and housing is quite expensive. Before you get to move into a new home, you will probably also have to pay 2 weeks of rent in advance and a bond (maximum of 4 weeks rent).

Finding houses can be done online on the property section of Trademe.co.nz or their app specifically for property. There are loads of listings here and we almost exclusively used this website to find our home. Another option is to check Facebook groups for people in New Zealand, we joined a Facebook group for Dutch people here and got in touch with someone renting out their place through that. Or if you already know some people here, you could ask around if they know any places looking for new tenants.

Once you have found a house that you like, you will want to set up a Trademe account if you haven’t done so already and contact the owner or property manager. Some owners like to rent out their house in person, others will go through a real estate agent and have a property manager that handles the viewings. Check the listing for the specifics and how to set up a viewing. It is important to always do this as viewings can get cancelled if nobody is coming. Often you can email the property manager or they have a website where you can book a viewing yourself. If it is a private listing you can often either call or email the owners to set up a viewing.

On the day of the viewing you will want to dress nicely; making a good impression on the owner or property manager never hurts. Some people will ask you at the door to take off your shoes or footwear when entering the property to keep the carpet clean. Always greet the property manager or owner to let them know you are there, they will probably need to cross your name off a list of viewers.

When viewing the house try to imagine where your furniture would go, does that big couch fit in this living room? Is there enough storage for your stuff? Does your car fit in this garage? Do you need new pans for that induction plate? Do you want to cook on an electric stove or on induction? Do you see yourself living here? Just a couple of questions you might want to answer while looking around.

If you have any questions about the property, now is the time to ask them, especially if the owners or current tenants are present because they know everything about the house. The property manager might not know everything as they haven’t lived there. You could ask if it’s busy with traffic, or what the neighbours are like, how is the neighborhood, why they/the current tenants are leaving. A good question to ask as well is what type of tenants the owners are looking for, long-term/short-term, and what they expect of the new tenants.

If you have a pet, especially if you have a dog, finding a good place to rent can be tough. A lot of landlords do not allow pets unfortunately. There have been cases where people left their pets when they moved out and landlords had to deal with that. There is however a growing group of landlords that are ok with pets, and some you can negotiate with. You can usually find out if pets are allowed or negotiable on the listing itself, and make sure to ask the property manager or owner when you meet them at the viewing. If you don’t have a pet yet but want to get one in the (near) future, also make sure to talk to your future landlord/property manager about this. You might want to set up a sort of pet resume to inform them of what kind of animal you have, what they are like and how they will not do damage to the property or annoy the neighbours by barking all day.

Yes! You found the perfect house, you can see yourself living there, and you already know where your couch is going to be. Great! Now it’s time to apply for the property. If it is through a private listing the process will be a little different than through a property manager, but in general they want to know everything about you. Most real estate companies have you use a platform called Tenant. Here you set up a profile, which takes quite a bit of time. The benefit of this is that if it doesn’t work out the first time, you can use the same profile you already set up and use it to apply for other properties as well. If they don’t use this, they will either have their own application page, or will ask you to email them a number of documents.

They will want to know your current visa status, a copy of your visa, about your job, how much income you have, sometimes they also ask about savings, they want to know if you have a criminal record, were late on payments, if you have a car or pets, and lastly they want a number of references. They will call those, to make sure everything is correct. And then they will want all of this information on your partner as well if you have one.

Setting all of this up and collecting all our documents took quite a bit of time; I think we spent several hours on setting up our profiles here. It might be worthwhile to set this up beforehand so you can quickly send in your application if you like a property.

Being a foreigner is not really helping in this situation, there is a bit of a shortage on the housing market, and competition is high. To help your application you can do several things to stand out. We wrote a letter to the owners, introducing ourselves and assuring them we would take good care of their house. We used to be home owners instead of renters, and therefore it was hard to provide reference of previous landlords for them to contact, instead we included pictures of our previous home to show them we took good care of it. We also explained how we handle our money responsibly, and saved all the required money to move here. We also asked our Airbnb host if we could give her name as a reference since we stayed in her Airbnb apartment for 4 weeks and took good care of it while living there. I’d recommend getting an Airbnb for a couple of weeks while finding a house, for this specific reason. Our host was so kind to provide us with a really nice recommendation when they called to check the reference. If you want to move around to different Airbnbs you probably won’t be able to get a proper/reliable reference from them as you only stay there for a short time.

I’d also recommend asking the property manager about anything you could do extra if you don’t have all the references they require, or if you’re worried you don’t have enough credibility built up here yet to make a good impression.

When you have applied, make sure to follow up in a week’s time if you haven’t heard anything. When could you expect to hear from them? This would also be a good question to ask during the viewing. If you haven’t heard from them, don’t be shy to call and ask about it. This shows interest and they can sometimes tell you straight away how far along the process is and what’s going on. If you didn’t get the property, you could always ask what the reason was, and see if that is something you could improve on.

Congrats, you got the call that you are the new tenants! Woop! Now it’s time to make an appointment to go over the tenancy agreement and sign it. Our house is being managed by a property manager and we went to their office, read the contract together and could ask questions about it. This document will also state what appliances are on the property, and what is expected of you as a tenant.

Here you will also agree on the official date you get the keys and when you can move in, and when the rent and bond payment is due. They will also tell you about what happens to the bond money, as this goes into a national fund where it is kept safe. The real estate company is obliged to transfer it there within 6 weeks after receiving it and after that you will get a letter from the Tenancy Services stating they have received it.

After you and the property manager set a date for the key handover you are basically all set. When meeting for the key handover you will do an inspection together with the property manager of the property. To make sure all is as agreed on. The property manager will have a list with known issues, or wear and tear marks. You will go through the house with that list and note any new or not yet known scratches, faults and issues, to make sure you both know the state of the house when you start to rent it. This is the only time you will be able to add to that list and make sure you don’t end up responsible for something someone else damaged. Check every room together for any damage, wear and tear and only sign it when you are confident it is complete.Then you will get your new keys and possibly your new garage remote and you’re all set. Welcome to your new home!

As a new renter in New Zealand you might not know exactly what the rules and obligations for both you and the landlord are. These can be found on the government website Tenancy.co.nz. Lastly it’s good to know that landlords or property managers are obligated by law to check the property every 3 months for repairs, maintenance and such. You don’t have to be home for this, but they will set up a date and time to come by and check if there is any maintenance that needs to be done. If anything breaks and they haven’t planned a visit soon, you can always reach out to them and ask them to fix it. We discovered a leak in our sink a few days after we moved in and we reached out to our property manager, she arranged for a plumber to call us to set up a time to fix it and they took care of the rest.

With this article I hope you feel more comfortable to start renting in a whole new country and what to expect and what to prepare for. I certainly hope it helps you to find a good house so you can build a new home here. If you still have any questions, don’t be afraid to reach out to me. I’ve been where you are and am happy to answer any questions you might have.