maybemelbs

Thank you for the replies so far. The new job would offer PR (although this is tbc) It's just letting go of the dream... but JockinTas I agree, I don't want to go over with rose-tinted glasses.

I know this is largely personal and up to us but I'd really like some objective opinions. We've always wanted to move to Australia. We looked into applying ourselves some years ago but didn't have enough points. Since then we've had two kids and have a really good life in the UK. We live on the outskirts of London, have a lovely house with a big garden for the kids to play in. We're in a good area, near good schools, parks etc and my husband and I both have great jobs which we love (for the most part ). Now, out of the blue he's had a job offer in Melbourne. We'd sort of put this dream to bed and now it's completely thrown us. We've never been to Melbourne but visited Sydney and Adelaide and loved the country, the friendliness and the outdoors life (which is something I grew up with). Financially it's clear that at least to begin with we would be worse off. My husband's proposed salary AUD75 (nonnegotiable) would be identical to what he's on now (using today's conversion) but he wouldn't have the perks (at the moment the rent on our house is basically covered as a perk). He's also due an excellent pension if he stays in the UK which he would have to give up. I keep reading how expensive Melbourne is and for us, paying next to nothing in rent at the moment and initially going down to one salary, this is a worry. I'm not sure if it's worth moving if we can't afford to live near the beach - this is the lifestyle we'd be looking for. I guess what I'm asking is, for people who have moved to Melbourne from the UK, have you found the lifestyle/weather so incredible that it's worth compromising and scaling back dramatically to start with? I know it depends on person to person but what would you do?

Thanks grahamffc, that's helpful. So if our mortgage interest payments and maintenance were enough to cancel out the rental income we wouldn't have to pay anything in Aus either? I imagine it would be a few years (2-3?) or so before we looked to sell.

Hello, we are looking at the possibility of moving to Melbourne but we're very wary of how much we'll have to sacrifice financially. One thing we'd want to do is keep our home in the UK and rent it out. How would this work with relation to tax? And if we sold the house in a few years time in order to buy a home in Australia, would we be taxed then too?