NZ also has universal healthcare. For anybody tired of the US healthcare "system" (what we have doesn't deserve to be called a system), that's very attractive even if you're not wealthy. Especially not if you're wealthy.
Edit: IANAtaxL but NZ does have a pretty sweet deal where new residents get to not pay tax on overseas income for four years. So Urs could come in for four years. Then if he maintains a permanent home in the US that is always available to him (not rented) a tax expert might argue he is dual resident and under the dual tax agreement would tie break to the US so doesn’t owe tax in NZ on his US income, which would be all of his income. So this is probably what he would do. It’s a pretty sweet deal, I don’t think it’s fair you basically don’t pay tax to NZ under that arrangement if your income is overseas and you can afford to leave a house unrented.
Wouldn't you still pay US tax as a green card holder or citizen? After decades in the US would be surprising if he wasnt.
(And even if not, does the US have an exit tax when giving back green card or passport?)
If you can afford to move here you can afford the overpriced housing marketing and food costs.
I’m planning to move to NZ soon and would love to hear more about the IT market.
The market here would in all normal respects be a bubble with average house prices now over 12x the average wage. The most unaffordable in the OECD I think. But the problem is the only thing NZers put their money into is housing. It’s treated as an investment where the goal is to build equity then use that to get the next house etc. This has been supported with very very low tax rates on property and no CGT on sales. (You pay a pathetic 0.25% tax on your property in Auckland.) On top of this poor policies have lead to not building enough housing for the growing population. So it’s unclear how it will resolve but it’s adding a lot of stress to the society, as half the population face a bleak future of housing insecurity and handing over most of their wages to live in bad conditions.
Bought my house 2 years ago (Auckland) and it is pretty good conditions (for NZ) with (almost) no isolation, windows that I have never seen in France, and a door which giant gaps at the bottom! And yeah, 1m+ $NZD... Hopefully the "prices double every 10 years in Auckland" trend will continue (we have some room for the interest rates to be lower...).
Good luck for Wellington mate !
It's not even a good investment when it comes to one's primary home. So your property went up 60% in ten years -- so did the one you'll have to buy if you sell it.
The newspapers abound with stories of houses that earnt more in a year than their occupants did.
Long story short: if you want a three bedroom house, a garage, a little bit of garden, perhaps a view? A million bucks. Roughly twelve times average wage.
My wife and I bought a 1950s, 5 bedroom house 30 minutes north of Christchurch for $520K in 2018. Estimated market price is now $640K. Not bad capital gains in two years... ...not that we're selling until some kids move out of home.
Prices have also been pushed up by expats with considerable purchasing power fleeing Covid, and supply that is very far behind demand.
There was something like 1 million Kiwis living overseas before Covid, which is 20% of the population here.
You can make twice that if you get a job doing similar work remotely for a US company; I used to, and I meet a lot of people who do. Nobody knows how many people are doing this, but it's a lot and growing.
I think our local companies might not realize they're competing in a global labour market now and need to pay accordingly.
In 2020 when I was looking for a senior dev position, 120k ($83K US) was considered a good salary. Though I didn't have a network or a specialization, which hurt me.
> You can make twice that if you get a job doing similar work remotely for a US company; I used to, and I meet a lot of people who do. Nobody knows how many people are doing this, but it's a lot and growing.
Any tips for how to break into the US market?
Most people I know doing this have a network, but there are companies that would probably interview you without a referral. In particular fully-remote companies like Zapier and Gitlab would be good bets. (I don't know if Gitlab pays global salaries, but Zapier definitely does.)