Tychen

Or (you could hope) they'll be able to buy somewhere nicer... it's not uncommon to hear stories here of migrant kids who find opportunities through the school system to get up the ladder and end up doing much better than their parents. Social mobility isn't quite dead.

May is too close to buy before you arrive - you'd have to rely on your UK jobs, income and credit history, which you won't be able to by the time the sale goes through even if you found something tomorrow. If you are buying after you arrive, think about probation (though depending on your occupation you might qualify for a occupation-specific product even while on probation), and also think about whether you will need time to establish your credit history. If you bank with a bank with operations in Australia, you might be able to get a loan from them more easily. Realistically, I'd say plan on renting for at least 9 months, and actually buying towards the end of the year or early next year.

If you've got a professional pack-ship-unpack service (which sounds like you do), you'd expect everything to be in the same condition as if you'd put them away in your own cupboard/wardrobe for however long it's taken them to get here. There were multiple layers of waterproof bubblewrapping for us. Some IKEA furniture (which we'd only packed because there was excess allowance) broke en route - but insurance allows you a bit of time to make those claims. I think the movers on this end came back to collect the packaging from remaining boxes after a couple of weeks. Like others, it took us years to unpack all the boxes.

Agreed - gives you time to find something you are happy with here. We brought some hand soap for example. I wished I'd brought more tea bags - not English Breakfast, there's plenty of that here, but non-standard varieties, you can get a much wider variety in tea bag form in UK supermarkets. If you want the same variety here you often have to buy expensive loose leaf in tea shops.

I'm more okay with whatever changes Roald Dahl made himself - that's the author's prerogative, whatever the reasons for the change are. But the current copyright owners aren't the author, they hold a monopoly over the book but they should be holding it on trust for the future. Maybe legally they can do whatever they want with it, but morally they should no longer label it as a Roald Dahl book if they do that.

We had this experience. Our London furniture was too big for our first place in Inner West Sydney.

Fair enough. It's easy to forget that the calculus is different if you don't have a container worth of relocation allowance to fill. This might be more helpful: here are some random examples of things we haven't been able to replace and/or have paid much more to get the same quality here: - Tailor made suits/shirts - Ties, cufflinks, silver jewellery - Clothing from high street chains like GAP, Hobbs, etc - British-made pottery - eg milk jugs - French made knives, pots

I agree - bring everything you can. Especially if you have anything good quality and/or made in UK/Europe, whether that be clothes, linen, crockery or appliances. Unless it's an Australian or Chinese product, it will probably be more expensive and/or impossible to replace at the same quality. If you bring appliances, I suggest investing in multi extension leads on the UK end - then you only need one converter for multiple appliances. For the TV, you can get a set-top box here to get it working. You are probably not in the market for nappies, but we found that it wasn't possible to get nappies of the same quality in supermarkets here. (We eventually found importers of the same brand of nappies, but made in Japan.)

I'd say with a $2.5m budget you can get a reasonable house in Hornsby or nearby, like Waitara or Normanhurst? I quite like Waitara - it's a bit built up around the station but it's probably quieter than Hornsby, and has all the useful shops nearby. Plenty of nature in the surrounds, and there are excellent schools in that area. Waitara is on the North Shore line through North Sydney, and Normanhurst is on the other line, which is express between Strathfield and the City - so both of them would give you an easy commute. If you follow the same train line further south towards Strathfield, places like Ryde should also be within your price range. There are some nice patches of nature around east Ryde, around Field of Mars and Buffalo Creek. Perhaps worth considering? It's a healthy budget in the current market, I'm sure you'll find something in a nice-enough area.

I met a highly educated professional who grew up in the Shire in that era and still feels very strongly in support of the local rioters... I think the undercurrent hasn't disappeared. That said, I agree it's much less insular than it used to be - it helps that it's a more diverse area now. I doubt the racists can whip up a riot now - the insularity is more likely to show up as garden variety NIMBYism these days rather than actual xenophobia.

For most working people the isolation transport-wise is the big issue. You can see it in the price difference between Como (Shire) and Oatley (St George), which are one stop apart on the train and otherwise fairly identical. Take into account, though, a consequence of distance and geography is that the Shire is culturally insulated. This is much less pronounced than it used to be, but there are still a lot of people who live and socialise only in the shire, tradies who only work in the shire, etc. Basically, unlike most of Sydney, the Shire is its own little place, long term residents are keenly aware of that and proud of it, much like the hobbits. Most of the time that's charming, every once in a while the ugly edge comes out - most dramatically in the Cronulla race riots. Granted the Northern Beaches is also called the "insular peninsula" for a reason, but they don't have race riots. If you are happy to get on board with that culture, it offers a great lifestyle, especially for families and retirees. It's got surf beaches facing the ocean and calm lagoons facing Port Hacking, forests and glens with wildlife, local cafes and also a shiny Westfield. Some excellent public schools as well.

Yes a lot of the Sydney suburbs that traditionally people would avoid - say Marrickville - are now some of the trendiest. As @Maisawright has pointed out the inner west is perfectly civilised. Once upon a time there was a sort of bastion of poshness in Strathfield and otherwise everything between Strathfield and the City was industrial/working class, but it's very different now, the inner west is now almost entirely leafy suburbs with done up houses and nice cafes (etc). The south is also nicer than it used to be - even the Sutherland Shire is not the backwater it used to be. Things have changed a lot in recent decades! That said, personally I wouldn't live further west than around Ryde/Concord/Strathfield. There's a sort of 'no man's land' of uninhabited land between the inner and outer west (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_West) and it's a completely different feel once you cross that divide. The northwest (beyond Ryde/Parramatta) also has transport issues - permanent traffic jams. If you need a mortgage, be aware that the length of your expected working life will play a part in how much you can borrow as well.

Not sure if this applies to credit cards but I've found that banks with cross border operations (eg HSBC) are generally friendlier to the fact that you might have income / assets overseas, compared to local Australian banks who always seem shocked that anyone might have money outside Australia.

I used to fly with them between Aus and UK occasionally but stopped (this was even before the missing/downed planes) because: (1) after sale customer service was atrocious; and (2) I had my phone stolen in KL airport in transit.

The northern part of Oatley and the southern side of Mortdale (and Penshurst) all shade into each other and are pretty similar. Things start looking different when you go further north, to Forest Road and beyond. Mortdale has a more traditional looking high street, but Oatley's village centre (especially the western stretch) should still give you most of the same amenities. Is school catchment a consideration for you? Both public primary schools in Oatley are excellent, so houses in those catchment areas attract a lot of family buyers.