Capital-bound family say Auckland too dear on $120k

Sabna and Amit Kakroo with Jay, 3, and Ishi, 10, plan to buy a home in Wellington. Photo / Supplied

A $120,000 annual salary was not enough for one family to buy a house in Auckland - so they're moving to Wellington.

Amit Kakroo said after 18 fruitless months spent trying to find a family home at housing auctions he and his wife have given up on Auckland.

Mr Kakroo moved to New Zealand with his family in 2010 from India, working as a business analyst for Sky and renting a home in Epsom.

The international move drained the family's savings but Mr Kakroo and his wife, Sabna, thought their $50,000 deposit would be enough to secure a three-bedroom home.

"We looked for about 18 months and we were spending weekends in open homes and auctions. We just gave up," Mr Kakroo told the Herald.

"You can't compete in the auctions. What you think is the maximum you can go to is where the auctions start - which is about 20 per cent over the CV."

Three years of savings and a "pretty decent" family income meant they now had enough money in KiwiSaver to buy a $650,000 home, but the options weren't there.

"For $650,000 I can't buy anything decent in Auckland.

"I could buy where my friends have bought in Puke[kohe] but then it would be about an hour plus commuting each way to the office."

Three weeks ago Mr Kakroo moved to Wellington, for the sole reason that he thinks he will be able to find a decent place for his family to live - one with good schools in the area and close to work.

His family will join him in September and they plan to buy a place within the next six months.

Like a lot of Kiwis, Mr Kakroo said he and his wife were emotionally invested in the idea of owning their own home. "The negatives [of Wellington] are it's cold and windy, but it's better to live in a cold and windy place in your own house with insulation and double glazing than to live somewhere paying someone else's mortgage."