Paula and Jay

Hi Sue, no not at all but I dont know what it's like trying to get an apartment in surry hills - I hear it's quite competitive but I could be wrong. We are in Waterloo about 10 mins walk to surry hills, we're paying $650 a week, expensive but it's close to the bus and green sq rail so all good. Plus it's round the corner from danks street which is similar (not as good), as surry hills. I do like it round there though, it tends to be less touristy so has a real good vibe about the place (Im not having a go at tourists but darling harbour etc is always so busy!! I must be getting old!)! Will take a look at the local pub, sounds lovely! We were there on Saturday, and went the clock, lovely! With regards to the rent pack, we needed my work contract, council tax bills (from the uk), Australian bank details, references, mortgage statements and that was it really. After that it was relatively straight forward, we sign the lease on Saturday at 8am! Excited, but also a bit worried that we're moving into an empty apartment!! Furniture arrives in about 2 weeks (hopefully!). Hope all goes well with you, let me know if you have anymore questions, we may not be able to answer them but it's always nice to talk to someone who's done it I think. Good luck, Paula & Jay x

Hi Tarby777 cheers, I'm just trying to sort out utilities for the move date next week. Am using direct connect as it looks very easy and all done in 1 swoop!

Hi All, After being in Sydney a week we decided to put a post of our experiences which will hopefully help / reassure others if they're thinking of doing the same. Flights with Emirates were great, no delays and no issues with baggage etc. Arrived in Sydney 07:00 and had booked a shuttle to take us to serviced accommodation. Despite the shuttle being an hour late it was ok (but cold!!!). We had booked the Meriton serviced apartments on Campbell Street purely due to the location. I would recommend constantly checking prices because we managed to book through booking.com and they had a flash sale so for 13 nights it was only £63 a night which for 5* accommodation in Sydney is amazing. When we arrived it was pretty daunting, despite us planning everything to the nth degree we didn't plan for the pure feeling of fear and it's amazing how despite being 2 grown adults we felt like lost children! We just didn't know how to do anything, how to get anywhere, where to shop, it really was a bizarre feeling. We had opened bank accounts with Westpac before we moved so had to do ID checks first thing which was straight forward. We still don't have debit cards as you need a permanent address before they issue one but we are managing without. Now the rental situation! We had read so many posts on here that the rental market is horrendous and we would struggle getting an apartment in 2 weeks. My advice is to research areas massively when you're back in the uk. We ideally want to live by the beach but for ease we decided to look around the Waterloo and surry hills areas as there tended to be some new developments with open viewings rather than set times. We had emailed the landlord prior tour visit so she knew we were coming. We went on Monday at 9:30 and by 11:00 we had secured a lovely 2 bed. Yes it's not necessarily near the beach but for ease and to stop stressing its ideal. It's a lovely complex with lots of bars, shops, restaurants nearby plus when we walked round danks street in Waterloo and crown street in surry hills it was full of cool bars and couples which is what we wanted. I believe if you're really specific about where you want to live it can be quite a challenge but in our view for ease it was great to secure somewhere so quickly, and we're only renting its not permanent so whist we're living there we can have a proper look at the areas and decide 100% on where we want to live. Bring your $$$ though it ain't cheap and 4 weeks rent as a bond plus 1 months rent in advance is costly but worth it :-) Its been quite easy to set a lot of stuff up, Medicare took 2 minutes, still haven't done driving license but it's on our list, bought pay as u go mobiles quite easily. My advise to anyone with a smart phone who wants to use it out here - GET IT UNLOCKED IN THE UK! Makes things so much easier! Started work on Tuesday after landing on the Sunday, was the best move ever as I quickly got into the routine of work and it felt like I lived here instantly rather than thinking I'm on holiday. Paula is finding it a bit tough being on her own in the day but she has a lot of appointments with recruitment agents and a few interviews lined up already so once she secures something and gets into a routine it'll be fine. I can honestly say that I had real doubts about coming here, saying goodbye to family at the airport, and the flight taking off was emotional and I spent a few hours on the flight secretly getting upset thinking we'd made the wrong move. How wrong I was!! It has honestly been the best thing we have done - I love the place. My work genuinely has the nicest people and my team are lovely - everyone is so willing to help and we have met so many people already - we forgot that there are hundreds of people doing the same thing as us and it only takes a minute to get a conversation started and before we knew it we had plans to meet people. Everyone works really hard but come the weekend it's a different story. It's winter here and weather is lovely - spent yesterday at Bondi just chilling out and today may do the same, whatever takes our fancy! With regards to the cost of everything, I think most things are similar to the UK. After our 1st shop at Coles we were pleasantly surprised, yes some of the brands are very expensive (coke etc), but you soon adjust to the prices. Plus Paula found a discount chemist so we go there for our toiletries which saves us a lot! The only thing that is a lot more expensive than the Uk is alcohol. Again, we aren't massive drinkers but $9 for a bottle of beer certainly sobers you up! Saying that though most bars have happy hours, which saves u a fortune. Plus they do great food deals, on Tuesday we went to cargo bar in the harbour and had $10 steaks. Believe me, for $10 you are getting a bargain! Really nice meal that we would have paid $30 for! Last night we spent in darling harbour watching the free fireworks, it was amazing, despite the $10 beer haha. I'm English - I have to moan about something!!! :-) Anyway, anyone thinking of doing it please do, it's been amazing for us, the Aussies have been so friendly and welcoming and it's been a great move. Just remember that lots of people move here so its normally quite easy to sort out most things so dont worry about sorting things out when youre here as you'll sort everything iut quickly and easily! If anyone would like anymore info (sorry for going on so long!),please let us know. Or if anyone fancies a beer (or cocktail in paulas case!),let us know, Jay & Paula

Can't believe it's finally here but we've said our goodbyes, furniture shipped, cars sold and were flying tomorrow night via Dubai. Been a tough week, harder than what we thought and really bizarre but were still very excited and determined to give it 100% Looking forward to living in Sydney and will update on here how we found our first few weeks etc :-) thansk to everyone for all their help and advice! Paula & Jay x

I used mine right up until it was shipped in the afternoon! X

Hiya! We waited 5 weeks and it felt like a life time! We fly to Sydney next Friday!! Good luck hope it comes through soon x

Haha thanks for the post! Some of the apartments we've seen in the eastern suburbs I can't believe the price they charge! Some of them are awful! It's nice to hear someone else going through it, we are hoping to get to an apartment and realLy like the feel of it etc and hopefully that's will make the decision but it's a tough one isn't it! We keep thinking that we're moving to change lifestyle so should live by the beach but then look at some of the apartments and it changes our minds again! When ru moving out there?

Hi all, i wonder if anyone has had any experience with this cos me and my fiancée change our minds every week and would be great to get someone else's views! We are moving to Sydney in 2 weeks and can't decide on where to live. We love the look of the new build apartments that seem to be available in Waterloo/zetland etc but also like the idea of living near the beach, yet most apartments in our price range that are near the beach are older - coogee or Bondi ? Has anyone else had this dilemma and if so what did you decide? Was it the right choice etc? Did you go for space or location? We think we have decided then we change our mind! Thanks in advance! Jay :-)

Hi Nickynook it didntnp specify that it had to be paid but on domain.com on the plans it quoted the strata prices that had to be paid, where I then started panicking! Thanks for the advice, much appreciated everyone :-)

Yeah we are going to get one where we don't have to pay it! It's seems so expensive as well! Thanks for the info jay

Thanks for the quick reply. On some rentals adverts its saying the strata fees are x amount each quarter?

Hi all, I'm having a bit of a panic attack - we are moving to Sydney 2 weeks on Friday and have budgeted $650 pw for an apartment. I know we have to pay rates and utilities on top of this but what are "strata" fees? Does everyone renting pay for these? I've only seen it on a few older properties? Can someone please let me know what these are and how would I find out if a property were looking at has these fees? Many Thanks James

Hi I know my fiancée and I had no issues getting a 457 visa. We just sent mortgage statements and bank statemnts dating back a couple of years and that seemed to be enough. My fiancée works in an office environment so not sure of yours would have difficulty getting a teaching position. You're right though, anyone coming as a defacto can work anywhere :-) good luck anyway, we're moving to Sydney in 19 days!!!

Hi anika i know what u mean, sometimes all u can focus on is the negatives but the way we are looking at it is (were moving to Sydney in 4 weeks), we will adjust when we're there. If its a bit more expensive than what we thought we'll just cut our cloth according to our means and spend all day at the beach! I can see what you mean, sometimes it's easy to forget the reasons you wanted to go because all u can think of is chocolate being double the price. All I can say is that a lot of people live there comfortably so I wouldn't worry. We just can't wait for the experience and the change of lifestyle. Hope all goes well for you, Jay

Thanks everyone! Were moving to Sydney and managed to secure a job offering sponsorship for both of us! Just can't wait now! Jit7 it'll be here soon! It's been hard for us waiting for a 457 so must be worse waiting for a pr one :-(

Flights booked, accommodation booked, job secured! Cant believe after all this time were moving to Sydney ! Just wanted to say thanks for everyone who has helped giving us info along the way! It's took us almost 18 months to get over to oz and finally it's becoming a reality! If anyone needs any info about our process let us know! Thanks again Jay

I'm sky plussing it! Feels so weird thinking were gonna be living there in 5 weeks!!! :-)

Hi. We understand what you're going through but don't be put off by how long things take. We had a similar roller coaster ride after being interviewed 3 times then bein offered job and it taking 5 weeks to get visa approval. Plus we waited so long to fid the right company / job role. It takes a long time unfortunately - id hold in there. just try to think of the end goal of living in oz. we are moving in 5 weeks after what feels like an eternity getting to this stage. Hold in there and hopefully something will be finalised soon, best of luck, paula & Jay x

Hi everyone, Were moving to Sydney on 15th June but was wondering how we would get a tax number? Can this only be done when we're in Sydney or is this something we can sort out here? Thanks Jay

Hi Melissa no I've never heard of them? How much do they normally cost? Thanks for the info! :-) we would love to be able to secure something prior to us arriving

Hi. Can anyone tell me if there are offers in Sydney to purchase on a monthly basis similar to what you can do in uk? E.g. £200 deposit, £200 per month?

Hi Cal, thanks for this. We're just going through the mammoth task of sorting out paperwork! We're going to take mortgage statements etc. thanks for the info - just hope we can get something sorted quickly :-) Jay

Hi everyone, Jay again here :-) Its 6 weeks and 6 days until we fly out to Sydney, think we've got most things sorted except the daunting task of trying to find a rental! We want to live in Zetland and are hoping to secure an apartment ASAP when we arrive but does anyone know what documents we would need to be able to secure an apartment? We will have 3 months rental up front - but are there any documents we should bring from uk to help us with our application? Ive heard mortgage statements etc - is this true? Many Thanks everyone in advance, Jay ;-)

Thanks for everyone's comments - I went to Alexandria and it was a bit industrial but I think we want a new apartment close to the trains! Thanks for all your help :-)

Hi everyone, We have our 457 visa and are moving to Sydney in 7weeks time! We have done extensive researching on areas and have a budget of $650pw for a 2 bed. Weve seen some lovely new apartments in Zetland which are close to the train and looks an ok area. Does anyone have any info on Zetland? How far would it be from Bondi and the beaches? Job is based in Alexandria - we ideally wanted to live by the beach but these apartments by Zetland are huge and brand new! Any suggestions/ideas would be greatly appreciated, Many Thanks, Jay