mxh

Excellent - as one who doesn't have a mortgage but does have savings, it's good news for me. Of course, if you have a mortgage then not so good - but there's always 2 sides to a story!

Have to ask - why would you want to? Unless it's something special, sentimental or other reason - but if we're talking just normal cars, financially it wouldn't make sense. We bought a car here for $12k which would probably be worth about £3k if we took it to the UK. Much better to sell in Aus, then take the $12k and swap it for pounds - that'd be about £7.5k at todays exchange rate.

The "report" has these two quotes in it :- "homeowners with negative equity - their house being worth less than they owe on it" "The report defines negative equity as any house that has seen its value grow by less than 10 per cent - below inflation - in the past four years" Surely these are completely different things - the first being "real" negative equity, and the second being some arbitary criteria which is pretty irrelevant to anything.

Once you've been in Aus for 2 years you can apply for PR (actually, I think you can do it before 2 years, but the criteria are a bit stricter). Once you have PR, you can move jobs without worrying about visas. You can also start the process before the 2 years ie getting the police checks, medicals, filling out the forms etc so that you're ready to submit pretty much on the day - this process can take a few months to do, so worth starting early if you're keen to move jobs.

Depending on finances, wouldn't it would make sense to stay in a serviced apartment until you find yourself a job - you don't want to rent a house in, for example, Surry Hills only to then get a job in North Ryde. Well, you might, but personally I'd prefer not to spend hours per day commuting.

Sounds like you've got similar interests to me and my o/h. We're currently in Sydney and are finding more and more in the way of mountain biking, although living near the city centre does mean you've got to travel for any / all of it. And it does seem to be more in the vein of the Welsh trail centres (ie marked trails) rather than just the bridleways etc of the South Downs. If you're into your boarding then I wouldn't suggest selecting somewhere just to be close to the Victorian Alps. Haven't actually been there, but went to Queenstown in NZ last year as the general concensus is that it's both better and cheaper - but compared to the French Alps / Canada etc it just doesn't come close. After having been here for a couple of years, we'd be a bit nervous of moving to Melbourne - seems to get pretty damn cold down there. Not as cold as the UK of course, but they've invented central heating, double glazing and insulation in the UK - things which are yet to be embraced over here!!

I'll soon find out the answer to that question, albeit with Barclays not HSBC I got a 'consent to let' 2 years ago (for 2 years), so phoned them a couple of weeks ago to see what to do next. They initially said that I'd have to move to a BTL mortgage, but when I queried this saying that I was told I'd be able to renew the agreement, the girl I was speaking to checked with her manager and came back saying that they'd send me another application form. So fingers crossed for another 2 years!!

I'm currently in Sydney (been here 2 years), but have given up the idea of carrying on racing dirtbikes. You've got Appin for the occasional MX, but the nearest enduro event seems to be the other side of the Blue mountains near Lithgow - and then only once in a while. I think you need to be prepared to do a lot of travelling if you want to race enough to make owning a dirtbike worthwhile.