grada

Love this post, very well worded, and echo's my own sentiment exactly. I think about my close family and friends every day, and while it's not my only motivation for moving back, its certainly a biggie. For me I think I have got to the point where my own homesickess, I can feel it physically, like really sick, dizzy, and cannot concentrate because of it. Thats when you know I think, and have to do something about it. Having a family and children to think about here, also needs to take priority, so their needs count also more than mine. Life is a complex interwoven mesh of friends, family, finances, careers, and joyful or tough experiences. Migration (for many of us) can put a strain on that already fragile network.

Sunny Coast Thinking we'd break even on the sale, would just be happy to sell it for what we'd paid for it, rental wise looking at the local market thinking there would be a small loss and would probably need to top up between $50 and $100 per week. It should rent out easily, its a nice house, 4 bed with pool near the beach, rentals round here don't stay vacant for long and this one is certainly a lot nicer than many of the rentals advertised.

Bit of a generic question I know! Short story is were approaching our 4th year here, and seriously considering a move back to UK (many many reasons, too many to list). My dilemma is what to do with our house here in Australia? Sell the house before we leave (bought it stupidly fairly recently so we'd have to try and sell it for what we paid for it, or close to), or rent the house out while we relocate to the UK. My reasoning behind this is that it's nice having the assets in bricks and mortar, and we don't know how long it'll take us to be eligible for a mortgage again once we hit UK shores. I'm thinking it could be a good idea to keep this one as an asset, and try and sell it once we become eligible for a UK home loan once again (with secure jobs etc). It would be good to hear from someone who has been in a similar situation? We'll probably do a holiday back home first just to make sure (not been able to afford a trip home since we landed 4 yrs ago!). Cheers.

Nov- March is like living inside a fricken' furnace here! Soooo, hot, you may be inside the gym then too!:biggrin:

Thanks for that info, yes will be letting lenders know, some of the expat mortgages I have been looking at will let you rent your house for a few years before making the move back, either that then it's a buy to let mortgage with a view to changing mortgage later on.

So true! I had the bug, now we've moved out here, we now know longer term that we'll end up home in Uk at some point, now the bug is gone and we know where we'll finally settle. Sounds stupid but now I know myself so much better, maybe I had to do the journey to get to this point. Only got to get my head down and complete 12 months work then hopefully we'll be back again. Lucky to have a strong marriage and beautiful children that have been able to deal with all the upheaval! Some of these new folk coming out will be making mistakes, some won't and will stay. When people who were encouraging us to make the move would say things like "you can't live your life for other people, you have to do whats right for you", when we were talking about missing friends, family, weddings and funerals, only the thing I now know is that those friends, family, weddings and funerals are our lives, they are part of us, and wholly ingrained.Those that are making mistakes won't know it until they are here, but only they can find out for themselves. I didn't listen to people who told me we may regret it, we came anyway, and although we have had to make it work, will be going home at some point.

This doesn't suprise me at all, most people I know that are working full time work very long hours with short leave entitlements, no wonder Australians seek a better work / life balance rather than climbing up the corporate ladder! My wife and I both work longer hours with ten days less leave entitlement than we had in the UK, so all in all not a better work/life balance. Also my Aussie friends who have worked in UK comment how they had it so easy with less stress when they were there. Obviously just my own observations, can't speak for the whole nation!

Thanks Rose, will look at that, we have just found a nice property that I am asking my friend to look round and send reports etc. Have worked out that we may also be able to cover Mortgage in cases of no tenancy also, but will have to fine tune the maths when have had discussions with lenders. Good to see that it may be possible and others have managed it.

We sent ours back about 6 weeks ago and so pleased we did, wish we had been a few weeks earlier but had long discussions with Moneycorp (we transfer with them too) and they seemed to think the golden days of the strong dollar are waning rapidly. If you need more in depth information about what moves the currency markets then try looking at the data on forex factory calender here http://www.forexfactory.com/calendar.php The key players to look for that affect AUD are- AUD-USD-CNY (China)-GBP Click on the little folders next to each event and it explains how it affects the market, red numbers=bad for currency, green=good for currency. We found monitoring this, together with xe currency charts (sometimes you can see movement shortly after the event results have been announced), and the business radio on in the background helped to make our desicions. It's a tricky game, and there's sometimes winners and losers, but we thankfully managed to prevent any further GBP savings loss by moving ours. There has been a spike this week to nearly 1.73, but last week was 1.69ish so it may fluctuate back down a bit before the slide to 1.8 that many people think may happen.

So sorry about your loss, apologies if I sounded insensitive, I didn't read the post properly, I know what it's like to lose a parent.

Many thanks Fourcorners, Great advice, I was aware that Lloyds had recently pulled out of overseas lending, I had heard about Barclays, and I think HSBC do as well, but the deposits are always higher, think we may be able to stretch to 25% but only just! Maybe easier to wait and buy once we are settled back in UK, but times ticking and probably would want to move quicker than planned in order to buy, wheras we are financially in OK position here (just), but know we need to be home at some point. We are from Cornwall too incidently! Love it and that's where we'll be going back to. Sounds like your in an excellent position house wise (jealous!). Will try for further research and get some appts booked with lenders, I know I'm looking far far ahead but like to have a plan!

(Sorry that should read 'Buying UK house while Aus Resident!) Hi, After a bit of advice, or wonder if anyone has been in a similar situation. We are currently residing in Aus but know that we'll be moving back to the UK, realistically within the next couple of years (it's where we want to be long term). Really at the stage of life where we need to be back on the property ladder, and want to buy my long term family home, have had a house before (sold and equity now in UK bank). Currently renting here in Oz (don't enjoy renting!), and could realistically buy here but don't want to if we are going home. Trying to research possibility of expat mortgages etc (a minefield!), in order to buy a UK house, which we could rent out until our return, then move in ourselves. Plan would be for a long holiday in UK soon to view properties, talk to lenders etc, but just wondered if anyone else had been done this or knows anything about it?

Mate, honestly there are plenty people out there living between the $50-60K mark. Admitadly I don't know Melbourne, but were on Sunny Coast, Qld which is super expensive too. Were family of four on about $54K (one of us has to stay home with two young children), yes we should be getting paid more due to our skills and background (has been hard to get skills recognised as equal here!). Don't know too many people who are on the $80k-$100K that seems to be the regular wage that people talk about on this website. It is a struggle until we get a dual income and we have to shop around, drive an average car and don't spend down the pub to often. But, having said that, we have no debts, no government handouts, live in a 3 bedroom house, put a little aside each week, have 2 happy, healthy kids, going on holiday soon! To be honest, I see families waste a shitload of cash just to keep up appearances. Every couple has an iphone on super expensive contract, drives a snazzy car with a huge loan, spends on credit, has to have foxtel, pissing it up down the pub, eating out often. To some, these are essentials that make up their life- me I get by without! If you can do without all the trappings that burn your cash then you can get by until you are able to earn more. Believe me, were doing it and so are many others I know! Just letting you know it is possible mate, but as I said, don't know Melbourne so research is key. Good Luck Buddy!

Not gone yet but hopefully maybe next year moving back. Reasons- -Friends and family- irreplaceable and miss them. -Working hours are much longer here (Aus) with less holiday entitlement -Feel like we have to start career from scratch here, foreign work experience & qualifications are not always well regarded -Cost of living was easier for us to manage back in UK -Miss the long, light evenings back home, gets dark way too quick here, in bed for 8pm most nights! -I love to surf, managed to surf way more frequently back home due to less working hours, longer daylight hours, and more holiday entitlement (and I live right by the beach here in Aus too!). -We had a large country house with land v. close to the beach at home, can't afford that here. -Suburbia everywhere here, even by the beach. -Astranomical daycare costs for our children, would be in school at home. -Heaps of reasons, don't get me wrong I love it here too, but feeling the pull at the moment, who knows!

Thanks, that's along the lines of what I was thinking of doing, all the best.

Good luck and well done! Just a quick question, when you applied for the job did you put your Oz address or a UK c/o address? Currently applying for a teaching job in the UK and not sure what will be most effective, putting my Oz address or the UK one?

That's a very broad statement and would be nice if you backed that up with some hard facts from DIAC- if your talking all migrants then this is probably correct, you have to consider that people migrate here from all over the world, from struggling developing countries and from countries with strict regimes and rules. If you look at bit closer at the stats from those from countries with similar infrastructure like US/UK/Canada/Europe you may find out that the numbers are a different story. It has been widely reported in the media here for some time and the returnee rate crops up from time so I'll take a look next time, not that it applies to me though, I am an individual with my own situation and plans for the future, don't think of myself or other as a 'statistic'.

I absolutley agree! Its not a few dollars, in the long term and having looked very closley at the economic data, if the AUD slips to 80c to the US $ as is predicted within the next three months (the unread note all the mining stocks being down too) for us these desicions can affect our nest egg by up to 30% or the equivalent of losing up to £ 30,000. That's the difference between us ever being able to get a house in either the UK or Australia, it affects my whole family, my children, and our whole quality of life. Wages here for us only just cover the essentials, and we do have to scrimp, save and do without just to get by. Earning dollars is no different than earning pounds, it's still expensive to live here unless you are earning a fortune. You can be well off and poor in any country. Everybody is different and I feel good for those who are fortunate and it is easy for them, but we all need to understand that everybody's situation is completely different.

A friendly word of warning before you do that: the predictions are for the dollar to weaken significantly before the end of the year, it took a hammering yesterday but more decline is forecast for later in the year. I would only move all your money if you plan on using it straightaway (i.e buying a house in the first 6 months). If you are able to wait a bit longer you will get a lot more for your money later n the year. We moved over April last year (from Cornwall too), and moved our house equity/ savings in two installments between 1.56/ 1.58 with the intention we may need it to buy a house fairly soon. We are 50/50 about staying, love it here but many personal reasons to return home, but are going to stay here another year just to make sure. With this in mind coupled with the dollar slide/ economic data news, we were keen to move our savings back to UK as a backup (we can always buy dollars back later in the year at a cheaper rate), just as was going to arrange this there was a sharp dollar decline this last 48 hrs- we just lost £3000 in under two days (ouch!!), with possibly more to come. Weighing up the options at the moment- If you are sure you are staying in Oz for good, then it won't affect you, if you may need your savings in the next couple of years to convert back to GBP then be hesitant. The AUD is a commodity based currency, and traders have known it to be overvalued recently due to the hyping of the resources boom etc. However this is beginning to slow down now, together with China's growth, and US and GBP currencies showing signs of strength, the AUD will return to it's more realistic value. Good luck with your move, everybody needs a good chunk of cash here to start to help you set up home anyway, thats unavoidable, it's just that if you have any cash you don't plan on touching for at least 6 months then I would just keep watching the rates for a better deal.

That's how I felt when I was moving over- changed at 1.56 last year, today is 1.62, now may have to move the lot back again (personal reasons) and down a few grand...... now I feel like a gambler on the lose!