So I’m sitting here in my warm, quiet house, with the sun streaming in, the kids playing happily, and pleasant background music playing. We’re in a highly ‘desirable’ suburb of Auckland, my husband has a well paying job, and I landed a dream job with great part time hours last year. Kids are in great schools, earning great marks, and becoming nice young men. We have family close by, good friends, plenty of things to do. So why are we so bored?
Things are too easy. Everything is in place, and that’s just boring. So we’re going to take this pleasant, inviting house, and renovate the heck out of it. Then we’re going to make a decision – move elsewhere in Auckland, and stick with the status quo, or move south?
Let’s jump forward fifteen years. The boys will be young men, finishing their uni studies or working, meeting potential partners, thinking about settling down and making babies (or not, that’s cool too). So where will they be living? When my husband bought his first house at 21, it was central and earned enough as a rental for him to buy land in Remmers and build our first home. We just don’t see that happening for the next generation. I see new parents every day at my job, dropping off their babies and toddlers for full days in care, while they rush off to offices to earn money to pay their mortgages or rents. If our boys and their partners aren’t going to live like that, then they will have to move further out. And I mean further out. Then travel an hour plus each way to and from work. Fine if you live and work in London, but this is Auckland.
So….. do we move now while they are younger, and settle them into local schools and communities, so that they have the chance to own their own land and properties, and get to and from work without sitting in a car or on a bus for hours every day? Or will they be bored stiff in the country, and fly away back to the big smoke as soon as they can? If we do move, it’ll be near a smaller town centre, with a choice of tertiary institutions and a prognosis of a growing economy and choice of jobs.
But first things first before we make any decisions where to live. We need to get this current house ready to sell.