[MotherBear]

To the east of Manurewa it looks like it?s fairly rural. Have you thought about researching some rural type properties, which could well be a lot cheaper and you could live the country life without being too far away from the centre of things? I would think the bad reputation South Auckland has is a blanket term and I?m sure there would be some pockets of suburbs/areas that aren?t tainted by this.

Perhaps giving yourself a radius of, say, 10 miles from where your work is and driving around the areas contained within that area would tell you which places are well looked after and are probably OK to live in. If an area looks a bit run down and other things aren?t to your liking, give it a wide berth. Of course, that?s only assuming that the run down areas are the trouble spots. I may be wrong on that one, but I'd go along with renting for maybe a month at least in an area if you want to make sure the whole family would be happy there.