My next job already has a desk with my name on it — the problem? It is in Queenstown, but I am not.
While my to-be colleagues in the Queenstown office for the Otago Daily Times and Mountain Scene look to my empty chair and wonder when I will turn up for work, I now enter my fourth month of house hunting.
Late last year, I accepted an offer to be a reporter in the resort. I had heard about Queenstown’s tricky accommodation situation and thought I knew what I was getting myself into, but I had no idea it would be this bad.
If you have not seen the headlines, people are literally sleeping in cars because they cannot find anywhere to live.
Now, I like my car a lot, but I also like having a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in.
In Queenstown though, that is often a luxury many people cannot afford.
Surprisingly, that includes journalists, too.
There are a handful of rentals that are within my budget, but in those cases, I am competing with hundreds of others.
Affordable rentals are listed and snatched up so quickly, they are gone before I have even finished filling in the application form.
Being more than two hours’ drive from viewings does not help either, so I am always glad when a tech-savvy property manager can set me up with a digital viewing.
Otherwise, I am often applying for places without even seeing them — yes, the situation has become that desperate.
It is hard to stay optimistic, but I have a few contacts in Queenstown who are keeping ears to the ground for me. I am holding out hope that one of them comes through and finds me a place, so I can finally turn up for work.
