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Rural areas offer top living

MIGRANTS settling in New Zealand could also do themselves and their children a favour by looking to settle outside a major city - and have an even better quality of life.

A new study shows that rural areas close to cities are flourishing. Their populations are the fastest growing in the country and the trend is expected to continue.

People who live in rural belts have the highest median and average incomes and spend more money than those in other areas.

Although they live in the country, they tend to work in the city. The proportion of agriculture and fishery workers is above the national average, but considerably lower than in other rural areas.

"People seem to have an insatiable demand for the good life living out in the country," says Professor Bob Hargreaves of Massey University s real estate analysis unit. "I think most of us have this dream of living in the country and not being crowded in apartment buildings."

But the country life is not for everyone and those who buy a slice of paradise don't always stay there. Real estate agents have told him that the turnover rate for rural lifestyle properties is high.

"Some of them find that when they actually go out there and buy the dream, it's not what they thought it was. Often, it's related to their kids."

Children and teenagers liked to be close to their friends and malls, sports fields and movie theatres. Urban families who moved to rural areas sometimes found they spent all their spare time driving, he said.

Harcourts national rural manager Kim Shannon said people often returned to the city when their children became teenagers. "There is still a steady flow of people from the city to the country. There's also a steady flow of people moving back as well."

Some lifestylers were ill-prepared for the realities of country life. They were troubled by noises from irrigation pumps, tractors and bird scarers, and equally unimpressed by smells.

"You have a dairy farm and there's a lot of effluent and you have silage heaps that can smell a bit. Town people aren't used to that," he said.

Many district councils had minimum lot sizes for rural subdivisions - often four hectares - and lifestylers often got more land than they wanted.

Farmers sometimes found themselves living next door to overgrown crops and unshorn sheep.

Federated Farmers Manawatu-Rangitikei president Shelley Dew-Hopkins said some lifestylers' inability to cope with their land became glaringly obvious during the February floods last year.

"Many lifestyle block owners didn't have the gear that was required, and they didn't know how to fix their fences properly or what to do with their water and dead stock."

To compound their difficulties, many were uninsured or under-insured and did not fit the criteria for government assistance. "Some people just walked away."

Professor Hargreaves said lifestylers often had high expectations when they moved to the country. They were accustomed to tar-sealed roads, good telephone and Internet coverage, and rubbish collection.

And they were often surprised by country life's hidden costs.

"Often people don't quite figure on just how much it's going to cost to have the same sort of amenities they had in the city."

Concerns about urban sprawl and the negative environmental impacts of lifestyle blocks were valid to some degree, he said.

Many people were now willing to spend a couple of hours a day commuting between a rural home and urban workplace.

But lifestylers can also benefit their rural neighbours. Mr Shannon, who owns land in Hawke's Bay, said farmers could subdivide land that was less productive. freeing up capital to buy land further from urban areas. Lifestyle block owners could lease orchards too small to be viable to owners of bigger orchards.

"That works really well because they've got the lifestyle, but they've still got the income coming off the land."

Professor Hargreaves said although land could become a burden to some people, he did not think vast amounts of New Zealand's land were going to waste. Lifestylers and farmers could be complementary in their uses of the land. While farmers favoured flat and fertile pastures, lifestylers were attracted to hills and native trees.

Lifestylers were often interested in different types of farming. Vineyards and olive groves had become more common.

"A lot of people who come out to the ,country are really innovative in their use of the land."