Mistakes expats make in New Zealand

Biggest mistake i made was using immigration consultant cost us thousands of dollars when if we applied directly to NZ immigration it wouldve cost us maybe a thousand dollars.

hey, so does that mean that its okay if we just go ahead and apply the visa through NZ immigration without hiring the immigration advisor?

TIA

I would apply directly but make sure that all forms are filled in correctly.Immigration advisors take money lots of it for assisting with filling forms in and submitting forms on your behalf.

I see.. Thanks for the info ☺
I'd rather do the checks thoroughly before submitting than to pay thousands of dollars. gosh i didnt know it would cost that much!

Thanks anyway ☺

Well the consultant we applied through charged us 5000 $ for visas permanent residence primary and final approval then for my new passport application from home country 600$.Then we asked how much for citizenship applications and he said 3000$.This we applied for ourselves which cost us 360$ and this was for two adults.

The believe that we would find a rental house quickly. It was very hard to find a rental house as it seems everybody is looking for a rental home. You have to compete with about 30 to 200 others...

Don't assume that New Zealanders aren't racist and that they value education. How I have coped is by getting better educated and hope things change as change does happen albeit slowly.

Biggest mistake by far - not buying a house earlier! Arrived in 2002 and all our new Kiwi friends told us not to buy a house as the market was about to crash!

At the time could have bought a villa in Devonport for $350-$400k, now going for probably $1.5m.

Finally bought a house 5 years after we arrived, and then the GFC hit, and then our house price dropped (but thankfully returned over the next two years)!

My advice - buy as soon as you can - don't delay!

We found that the NZ government would only accept visa applications through a NZ qualified  immigration agent as you have to jump through a thousand hoops to get 1, we applied under the parent category as both our sons lived and worked in NZ and as we intended to make NZ our permanent home and at our age we could not take the chance to cock anything up. you also have to use a NZ government approved medical doctor for your medicals. we had to travel about 60 miles to go to our nearest 1.