It's funny... I haven't spent enough time online to closely examine all areas, but the one area I have spent time looking at is the Bay of PLenty. Mind you, you have supplied much more info than any site so far. Mostly I've been checking real estate and jobs. When you say places like Tauranga are getting pretty big - what does "big" mean - population wise? Our plan is to have a minimum $100000cdn to put towards a house purchase. The sale of our house would give us that easy, but we'd might like to keep it - just in case. However, the more - the better.