Flimsy Houses?

I am going to talk about houses this week. If you have looked on my website you will have read my thoughts on New Zealand houses but this article is more about English attitudes surrounding NZ housing. Early on during our night out last week, when you could still make pleasant conversation without dribbling, a few of us were discussing local house construction methods. Joyce mentioned the "Blue Peter" method, where the houses seemed to built out of cardboard and sticky tape and then sprayed with cement. (Do they still make things out of cardboard and sticky tape on Blue Peter, come to think of it do they still make Blue Peter, perhaps someone will let me know.) A lot of the new houses are made in this fashion. The house we rent at the moment is such an example, if you push really hard on the outside wall you can feel it give. Now Andy has bought his house and has the attitude that, if that is how the houses are built, then what can you do? Vaughn is a builder and his answer was to build his own house made of stone. While listening to this it kind of put me in mind of the story of the "Three Pigs" and if I could have found a barrel chested wolf with the right "Huffing and Puffing" credentials, it would have been interesting to test the various houses.


If you come to NZ with a large bag of money, you may be tempted to buy a house, there are a lot of "lovely looking " ones out there. They do perhaps seem a fair price for the space that you get if you have just converted your Pounds to $NZ. It is just that if you have to buy a house with Kiwi Dollars that you have earned here, and have to take on another life time of debt, that you really do think twice and become critical of the construction methods.


While talking about attitudes, there is a perception amongst some Kiwis that all the Brits that have moved here have sold up in the Surrey "Stockbroker Belt" and have come here with a shed load of money and that is the reason house prices have doubled in the last 4 years. What I can tell you is that the group of Brits that I was with, were all grafters from Durham, Liverpool and Halifax all doing our very best to get by. No large bags of money, just a great attitude.