Searching for Properties

Finding properties for sale in New Zealand was pretty easy for us. We found some great resources online like www.realestate.co.nz and www.trademe.co.nz. We used a number of other sites as well as we tried to find properties that interested us. We have listed these sites on our Resources page. We weren’t looking for a house or small section so we had to wade through quite a lot of listings to find something interesting. It’s difficult when you are looking for land instead of a house. The images never accurately convey what you’ll find when you visit the property. In addition to the images (or lack of images) we found that we had to use a number of different search terms depending on the website…it seems there isn’t a consistent way to categorize large pieces of land. Is it lifestyle? Is is rural? Is it section? Is it farmland? We didn’t know for sure and neither did the sites, making our search more extensive and tiring.

When we did locate properties we were interested in we were able to look them up on Google Earth. Often the listings don’t have the property’s address listed but one call or email to the real estate agent will usually provide that information. Checking out properties on Google Earth before visiting them provided us with a good visual idea of the lay of the land, the location, and surrounding areas. Google Earth is a free program you can download and install on your computer. In most areas it will show the elevation of the land as well as details pertaining to bush (forest) area, water (creeks, rivers, etc), and will even show existing houses in the area. With the 3D feature you can see the property as if you were flying around it. In some cases you can see the view you will get on the land.

Once you locate the property on Google Earth you can create a placemark on it and draw the outline of the boundaries. You can the save these as a file and email this to other people, which would be able to open these files in their own Google Earth. It will then add these in for them and fly them there!

Realestate agents, it seems, have a sense of humor all to their own and they display this in the titles they give each property. Here’s some that we’ve deciphered for you.

Blank canvas (one of our favs)….totally barren land that even Picasso wouldn’t be able to do anything with.
Vendor said “sell!”….well, yeah, we kinda already assumed that.