163ALLOUT

Hi Guys, Not been on for a while, I moved to the Sunshine Coast 3 + years ago, great lifestyle, beautiful beaches, lovely people socially but geez, trying to find good workers is a nightmare! I came on a business visa, I set my own window and door manufacturing and installation company up and have struggled to find decent hard working installers. I know it's a similar story for most trades. So if you can get a foot in the door over here and show your worth then work is a plenty. ps if anyone wants some fitting work let me know Jon

Alright our kid how am ya I originate from Solihull and have lived on the Sunshine Coast now for 3 years. My wife and two kids love it up here. If your husband can fit windows and doors then I have a job for him, CAD would be useful too. I came on a business visa and my company manufactures and fits aluminium windows and doors for the commercial market down in Brisbane. If there is anything you want to know send me a PM and I'll try and help...It's the best move we ever made. Jon

Hi Guys, I have a commercial aluminium window and door business in Queensland. Most of my work is based in Brisbane. I am looking for some experienced fitters/installers who are conscientious, loyal, hardworking and keen. We have a good order book and some excellent potential if I can get a good team around me. If anyone is interested let me know on here and I will get back to you Cheers Jon

Is it a war on positivitism by any chance?

Welcome to paradise! Left Solihull 2 years ago for Pelican Waters, never looked back. Other than a decent curry can't say we miss the UK at all. Oh and my footy team The Blues but their having a tough time so best out the way I reckon. Sunday morning here, late Autumn with winter around the corner, it's 28c, not a cloud in the sky and we're off to the beach:biggrin: Off to a street get together this arvo, every few weeks we get togther with the locals, take a plate of food, an esky with beers and sit outside chatting while all the kids play together in the street. Plenty of Aussies, a few Poms, South Africans, Canadians and Kiwis. If you mix in the welcome is tremendous. Only regret is not moving here earlier!

Did I, where? I do tend to ramble off subject so you may have misconstrued the point. We are definately staying put with no intentions of leaving. Glad you like the blog by the way :0)

Hi Skippy Believe it or not the blogs had 22 views from Belgium already....Why I don't honestly know!!

Thanks for the kind words on my blog, Why do I buy into a few businesses? well they seemed like a good idea at the time I guess!! Opportunities come up and 'he who dares'. I'm begining to sound like Del boy now lol

G'day all, I haven't been on in a while due to work and beach commitments! For anyone remotely interested I have been living on the Sunshine coast QLD for nearly 18 months now. I have been compiling a blog about our life here coupled with some inane ramblings which have got absolutely nothing to do with, well anything really! If you get chance and want to see some nice sunny pictures then please feel free to take a look. Comments welcome, I've learnt how to delete the bad ones now :0) Jon Visit the Williams family trek to Australia at.... http://3nicepomsandagit.blogspot.com/

Buderim is full of old fogeys, zimmer frame city lol Nice forest though to be fair

We moved to the sunny coast in June 2011. Boy do we love it!!!! Best thing we ever did. Just bought our first house on Pelican Waters. Wouldn't want to live anywhere else. I have a blog with pics on with a link at the bottom. Bit out of date but have a look if you can

I live in Pelican Waters. My boys go to Caloundra City private which is a great school. Also Pacific Lutheren is very popular. The state school in Caloundra is supposed to be pretty good as is the one near by at Little mountain. Maroochydore has a good shopping plaza if that floats your boat, personally I wouldn't want to live there. You can't get much better than the Caloundra area. Just my humble opinion!

Hi Matt, Getting a licence here depends on your skills and certificates you have obtained in the UK, you do however have to apply through the BSA in Queensland to obtain one. If you check out the BSA website there will be more information on there, as well as a rather significant amount of paperwork to fill in too I'm afraid! You can work on sites as long as there is a supervisor working along side you who is licenced. At present we are seeking licenced installers, if you want to send me your Resume we may have openings in the future once we have found our licenced supervisor. As a manufacturer you do not need a licence, it is only when you are an on site installer that the supervisor is required to have one on all jobs over $3,300.00. If you send me a pm I will return my email address to you so you can forward your resume to me. Best of luck Jon

Hi Guys and Girls, A friend and I here in Caloundra have aquired a window and door manufacturing company and we need installers who have a builders licence to operate within Queensland. If anybody is interested please pm me a telephone number and I will call to discuss Thanks Jon

Hey Guys & Gals Just catching up with the site after a while. We've been living on the Sunshine Coast for 1 year now and will do my reccie report in the next week or so for anyone interested. I came over on a 163 business visa so busy preparing my start up in manufacturing, gulp. For anyone who may be coming over on this type of Visa I have a good friend here who has an excellent Restaurant business for sale on the seafront at Mooloolaba, brief details are... The business employs 14-18 staff is and has been a consistent shop with same owner for over 10 years so has a huge amount of intangibles for any buyers...I am happy to stay on and work for the new buyer to educate them on the Australian laws in alcohol and Food...The shop has all manuals for staff and is open 7 days...it would allow the owners to have most nights off like I do and give them a perfect business to enter with and achieve the required ticks http://www.rs.realcommercial.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=3174561&f=30&p=10&t=bus&ty=&fmt=&header=&cc=&c=45944006&s=qld&snf=as&tm=1340174053 Please let me know if anyones interested and I will forward your comments onto the owner. Back soon with my update, Jon

Thanks Guys for your kind comments, It's all a bit tongue in cheek so glad you appreciated it! Life's to serious enough. Sunshine coast is a fab place to live, you picked the best place to come to. Hopefully see you here one day Jon

Hi, We live in Pelican Waters about 20 minutes away from Glass House, know the place well as my son played cricket for the rangers. Very close to Beerwah which has shops and facilities, very green with fab views, you will defo need a car though to avoid being isolated. Buderim has some nice parts and some parts that are old and a bit antiquated. Depends what type of place you want. Oh and house prices in GlassHouse are massively cheaper the Buderim. Hope that helps. Jon

Hi Everyone, This is the first time I have been on here for a very long while and I apologise for not replying to the numerous questions asked here. They are now out of date so I won't reply to them unless you still want the information. If you want to know anything please re-post and I will ensure I check back soon and reply! Life has been great over here, not perfect but where is. Economy isn't great, it's expensive...But it's a fantastic place to live... If you are prepared to roll your sleeves up and get stuck in then it's worth it. For anyone who may be remotely interested I have been doing a blog since we arrived...It's very random and hopefully it might make you smile !!! Once again, my apologies for not replying, I'm now standing in the naughty corner feeling guilty! Jon W www.3nicepomsandagit.blogspot.com.au/

Hey Everybody and G’Day from downunder! Firstly I offer my perfuse apologies for not being on herelately and for not replying to my last post ‘ 3 weeks on the Sunshine Coast’. Very remiseof me as I stand in the naughty corner feeling guilty. Well time has flown by as we have become firmly ensconced inthe Aussie way of life. To summarise our experience here so far I would say, Yes… It’s expensive here, The Chinese takeaways are crap The TV is dire It rains, well here it does and bloody hard and frequentlyto The exchange rate is appalling But you can’t have everything when you live in paradise! For anybody remotely interested I started a blog from whenwe arrived, it’s a long read, it’s extremely random, it requires a sense ofhumour and there are some nice pictures to look at, If you get chance to look then please leave some comments,good or bad, I can delete the bad ones anyway J Follow your dreams people, it is a very hard slog gettinghere, there’s pain and trauma along the way but my goodness is it worth it inthe end! I will return to do a 12 month update at the end of June forthose interested. Regards Jon W www.3nicepomsandagit.blogspot.com.au/

Hi All My family and I moved over to the Sunshine coast about 4 weeks ago. I must admit before leaving I was having second thoughts. I was worried that I was uprooting my family and the supposed cost of everything etc etc. Well I can say from first hand that the post claiming cooking pans are $400 is a complete and utter load of b****cks. You can buy a pack of 2 pans from K-Mart for $15.00. The cost of living here is similar to the UK; something’s cost a bit more some less. I'm surprised the poster didn't mention that petrol is $1.40 a litre (95p). Car insurance for my wife and I for the year at around $500 and I could go on and on. It's a shame that someone who quite clearly is unhappy here in Aus. is spreading tosh and making people more nervous. It's a big decision to emigrate. It's an individual thing that you can only know if it's the right choice by trying it. You only live once. Personally, we absolutely love it here. I think it's a fantastic place to live. But that’s my opinion, yours may be different but you need to try it first and not listen to crap from biased negative opinions. Jon on the sunshine coast

This could be a long one, I am known for waffling. if you’re interested, sit back, get a coffee and a few extra ciggies, if you smoke that is, this may take a while. We arrived on the Sunshine Coast on the 29th June to be greeted with the coldest weather they have had here for a long time and plenty of rain!!! Thankfully didn’t last too long and after a couple of days the sun came out and we have had warm (22/23c) days with blue sky in abundance, it’s still mid-winter!!. We spent 4 nights prior to arriving in Singapore to recuperate from the stresses of leaving the UK, It was wonderful to relax for a few days and take stock of where we were at before embarking on the next whirlwind of setting up a new life. Having arrived at our holiday let we soon realised we had made a mistake in the location, the house wasn’t the best either so we prioritised a more permanent let and spent the first week touring round until we found the right place. We found the house we have now lived in for a week (Pelican Waters) by driving round and around areas, we spotted a for rent sign in the garden would you believe, like most people we spent hours and hours searching realestate.com.au from the UK which in hindsight was a waste of bloody time as the house wasn’t even on the internet. You need to be here to judge the places properly, I’d disagree that the camera never lies when you see some of the places that look great in picture but aren’t in reality. We also made a mistake by securing our holiday let for 4 weeks and paying for it up front, a bit of wasted money there too. We chose to take it on the chin and move on with no regrets. Should have booked a week and then took it from there but hey, hindsight’s a wonderful thing and I’m sure we’ll make more mistakes along the way. As they say you live and learn!! Lifestyle Best way to sum it up was when I went into LJ Hookers and got talking to an original 60’s £10 pom. After asking me how long we’d been here he said “ welcome to paradise”. So far I’d agree with him. I have to keep pinching myself that we actually live here. It really is a lovely place to live. Cost of living A real mix bag is probably the short answer. Petrol is $1.35 (90p)a litre is a lot cheaper. I would say rentals are on a par with the UK, there are cheap places and expensive places, it all depends on your budget and what you can afford and want, we wanted a wow factor when we arrived so we’ve gone and rented a waterfront home, just need to sell a kidney to stay here longer than 6 months! Food is more expensive, you can shop around and get better value for money than the Coles/Woolworths of this world, it’s just takes time to find the places. They are out there though. Cars, bloody expensive! Second hand cars cost an arm and a leg compared to the UK. Tip of the day. If you can invest and buy a luxury European car like a Porshe, Bmw etc back in the UK 12 months before you leave then bring it with you. You can sell it here for double what you’d have paid for it in Blighty. I know not everybody can but if you have some cash then you’ll not regret it. You need to read up on the removal and tax costs but it’s well worth it. Check out the Red book in Australia which is the equivilant of our classes guide book. Furniture and household goods aren’t that bad, it depends where you shop. Like the UK you can buy a sofa for $800 or $8,000. It’s down to choice and quality. We've bought some basic stuff at A-Mart while waiting for our container and they were no dearer than the UK. We also found a second hand washing machine for a 100 bucks!! Bargains around if you look and ask!!! House prices are falling, lots for sale and no buyers, another 12 months before I’d even consider buying anything. It is cheaper to rent believe it or not, they have negative gearing which allows landlords to offset rental losses against their tax, bizzare but true. Overall I’d say it’s certainly not cheaper here than the UK but you can find bargains if you look. Economy Not been here long enough to get a full picture, first impressions talking to locals is that there is definitely a two speed economy here. Mining sectors booming everything else struggling a bit. There’s a lot of conjecture regarding interest rates, some of the banks are now saying that rates will have to come down to stimulate the economy, that in turn would greatly help the exchange rate if you have £’s. There are one or two who reckon rates will still go up, that will have a devastating effect if they do, a bit of a knife’s edge scenario at present. There’s some big infrastructure projects in the pipeline though that will give the construction industry here a much needed boost. It just seems the Pollies (Politicians) are on another planet and way out of step with ordinary folk. Mind you could say that about the Uk’s as well. I’m over here on a 163 business visa so I will bide my time for a short while and see how things pan out before jumping in The Locals Have to say the Aussies we have met are the most helpful and nicest bunch of people you could wish to meet in our experience. As long as you put yourself out there and communicate with people they are great, when we went to the bank to sort out our account they couldn’t have been more helpful. The lady dealing with our account even took us around the shopping plaza showing us where certain shops were. Can’t see someone from Barclays Bank doing that! We have also met up with an English family who have been here 3 years. Met them on this forum and they have been great, been out a couple of times with them which we have really enjoyed, they’ve even lent us a telly until ours arrive from the UK. Their eldest son is a similar age to mine and we’ve just had our first sleepover guest. If the kids are happy and settled it makes a big difference. Kids have now done there first week at school. Too early to tell on the quality of education but first impressions are that they are a little bit behind the UK. Time will tell though. The Teachers have been most welcoming though and first reports on class mates has been V good. My eldest has hooked up with a few new mates on facebook already so good signs. My eldest in an English lesson had to take turns in reading aloud for the class, when it was his turn the teacher kept him reading for ages compared to his other class mates. The Teacher apologised after and said she just loved hearing his accent! Lol. Summary Very positive start for us, lots still to do and very early days for us. I just think that if you’re going to be skint you might as well be here with no money than in the UK!! It’s bloody warmer for a start off. If you stuck with the thread then thanks for reading, if you haven’t then sod you (you won’t be reading this bit anyway) Lol. Best regards from The Sunshinecoast Jon

Hi Iron Chef Thanks for this thread your a star mate. I'm coming over later this year on a 163 business class visa. When I arrive I would have owned my car for about 10 months. It's a BMW 335I Auto sports. It's 4 years old and according to the red book the bottom trade in is $51k ranging up to $64k private. I reckon I'd only get about £13/14k in the UK. My 163 allows me to come and go for 4 years etc 1) Do you think I might sneak past the 12months if I leave it in uk for a couple of months before I import 2) Do you reckon it's worth it cost wise Thanks for any help Jon