beketamun

2 hours ago, Labmad said:

ah bugger, I have just sold my classic beetle as I was told it was too complicated to import it.

You did the right thing unless you could service it yourself.  For any cars like that you need to look at parts availability.   

Even 10 years ago you'd steer away from something like a Skoda because even if you could use Volkswagen parts for servicing, availability of things like replacement bumpers or light casings meant a long wait from Europe, and there are not as many VAG mechanics here as in Europe.

In all seriousness....look at Toyotas. They are everywhere, they're not classed as a more premium car like in the UK, parts are easy, every mechanic in Australia can service them.

On 06/08/2022 at 20:57, Andystiz said:

we get gammon from pacdon - they do real gammon steaks, gammon joints, haggis etc.

thanks for that, they deliver to ACT as well which is a new thing.

On 29/08/2022 at 05:37, Labmad said:

Hi, 

This is my first post, so I apologise in advance..... 

I'm migrating next month to Melbourne to start work in a local hospital on a PR visa. One of the first things that I'm going to need to do is purchase a vehicle, but I'd rather try and get one on finance rather than continue to deplete our savings, which we want to build on to get a mortgage at some point.

My question is, how long do we need to be in country before I would be eligible to apply for car finance? I have a full time work contract and have most other things already set up like bank account and medicare etc.

Thanks

Shaun

You need a credit record, so some utility bills and perhaps split them across yours and your partner's names so you both get a record started.   You may find you need a credit record even to sign up to a post-paid mobile phone contract because you'll be taking credit.

12 hours ago, Ken said:

Actually over here second-hand cars are very expensive compared to the UK which makes people think "I might as well buy a new one".

Earlier this year waiting times for new cars had blown out so much that one year old cars were more expensive than the list prices of new cars because the used cars were available now and you wouldn't see the new ones for 6 months or more, but even in normal times Australian cars depreciate slower that British ones.

The UK is damper and there's a lot more wear and tear on the vehicle through constant stopping and starting.   Here you can see 50 year old cars wiithout any rust and Toyota's that will do a million km. 

I saw a Volvo 142 automatic cruising the street here with it's original paint job....very faded but sound.  My grandmother drove one of those in 1977 and it went to the scrapyard 40 years ago.  The classic car shows here are excellent, you see British cars that don't exist in Britain anymore.

21 hours ago, Marisawright said:

The reason is, as Jon says, car finance here isn't the same.  When I was in the UK, I was astonished how many people buy a new car on finance, but then I realised how cheap it was. 

I bought a Skoda Fabia VRS on a credit card once. Ordered it online, it turned up on a truck and they rolled it off and handed over the keys, 0% for 12 months.

49 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

They are good at it, but it's designed to get houses off the agent's books quickly, NOT to get the best price.  For the agent, an auction lets them get a property on and off their books within six weeks, AND the seller pay all the advertising and all the fees.  Whereas if you opt for an ordinary sale, they have to keep advertising at their expense until it's sold, and they have to keep supplying staff to conduct inspections, and that can go on for weeks or months -- because the owner is holding out for the price they really want.

It works like this:

• Agent views the house and tells you it will definitely sell for the price you want.
• He talks you into selling by auction, saying it's the best way to build excitement, people get carried away and bid more, etc etc
• They run a six-week campaign.  During this campaign, the home is open for inspection at least once a week.  After each inspection, he contacts you to tell you all the NEGATIVE things that potential buyers have said, and tells you about all low price estimates people gave him (which they did because he told them a low figure, of course).
• Auction day arrives.  Just before the auction, he asks you what reserve price you want to set.  If (as you probably will) you nominate a price he thinks is too high, he'll remind you of all the negatives people came up with.  Bythis time you're losing confidence in your price anyway, so you may agree to set it a bit lower.
• The auction proceeds. The property doesn't meet reserve.  The auctioneer announces they're going to consult the seller.  The agent comes and tries to sweet-talk you into lowering the reserve, while his sidekick goes and tries to talk the bidder into increasing his bid.
• The bidder increase his bid. The agent standing beside the seller gives another pep talk.  Ditto the agent with the bidder. Eventually, the seller goes, "Oh f***, I just want to get this over with" and agrees to put the property on the market.

To sum up:  because the bidder was given a low estimate before the auction, he's peeved because he bid more than he wanted.  Whereas the seller is peeved because he got less than he really wanted.  The agent says, "Well, you can only sell for what the market value is at the time", which is total nonsense.

Yep, I know.  As you've described it is very sophisticated.

I bought at auction once, wont bother again.  Last one i sold we refused to auction and the real estate guy was superb, had a great strategy.  We were goiing to sell at 825 and one up the street went up for 888 (to attract the Chinese), so we held off for a few weeks, let them do all the viewings.   As soon as they went "under offer" we put ours up for 900 and it sold 30 miins after the first viewing.  Pre-pandemic though, wiith low interest rates.  But a changing market will change strategies. 

14 hours ago, Ausvisitor said:

Why are auctions so popular in Australia, and why are real estate agents so bl**dy useless at giving sensible guide prices?

I mean they've only got one job, look at some bricks and say what it's worth, how can they be so bad at it?

if you went to the auction, they're good at it....it is a very sophisticated and quick market, none of this 6 months to sell a house nonsense.

It will interesting to see how things might change in a dropping market.  Our last house was bought off-market, we sold at higher than asking price and gave them 90 days to complete. 

If you know the area you want, might be worth making friends with a few real estate companies and getting on a list for early viewings and telling them what you're looking for.  Sometimes people don't want to hold auctions or pay for advertising, they just want rid...they'd be expecting a quick sale with little hassle/haggle.

Had similar issues....went over for 3 weeks to arrange the sale of my dad's house in February before he comes here, a simple house and big garden split off for a building plot....no mortgage or chain complications.  The land has taken 5 months to sell to a cash buyer, the house isn't even on the market yet because the new boundaries have to be registered with land registry.  They are bloody hopeless.  The estate agent nearly fell off his chair when I said we usually had 30 days to complete over here.....it concentrates the miind somewhat when you work to a deadline.  On the bright side, prices are still rising over there and he doesn't have to hang around there waiting for the house to be sold now.

3 hours ago, Blue Flu said:

Please don't patronize. Drug abuse is widespread and nothing to laugh about. A very expensive area has nothing to do with it. My area is expensive and ridden with it. 

Have you considered trying some drugs to make yourself more mellow, you seem to have the money?

2 hours ago, Marisawright said:

40km is nothing.  Greater Melbourne actually covers more square miles than Greater London.   If median rent is calculated across that area, it stands to reason that houses which are two hours' commute from the city will be much cheaper and will pull down the median figure compared to more compact cities.

It's not though ?  I thought REISA look at inner, middle and outer zones to get the median price for each area as the best method as comparison, then combine for the overall median for the statisical area.  Obviously the numbers and distances involved will be different, but then that is a different comparison?

41 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

Just to be clear, we are talking rents here, not buying a property.

I agree that Melbourne is a lot cheaper than Sydney, and I'm prepared to believe it's cheaper on paper than Canberra, too.  I just wonder, if you compared equivalent properties, whether it would still be cheaper?  Byh that I mean, if you looked at properties the same distance from the CBD.   Canberra is much more compact, so you should really discount all the far-flung dormitory suburbs of Melbourne, which make the prices look cheaper than they really are.

I find it surprising that Melbourne is cheaper than the other capital cities, too.

Honestly, that's rental prices.  And in Canberra, being Canberra...it extends out into the edge suburbs where a lot of the newer properties are, 40km long?

https://7news.com.au/business/housing-market/renting-a-property-has-never-been-more-expensive-as-new-data-shows-prices-are-soaring-amid-australias-cost-of-living-crisis-c-7513934

On 18/06/2022 at 22:19, Marisawright said:

It really depends where you are going to live in Australia. For instance, prices in Sydney are about twice the price of everywhere else in Australia, except Melbourne.  It's a bit like London, in that you can find cheap places, but they're a long way out of the city with a very long commute.  

If you can flatshare in Australia then you can flatshare when you get back to the UK.  Once you are earning a salary there's no reason why you can't manage that.

Canberra is more expensive than Sydney these days, probably because of mass covid vacancies in the Sydney CBD...some great deals around.

Melbourne is the cheapest in Australia, nearly $1000 per month cheaper than Canberra for a house. Completely insane.

3 hours ago, DIG85 said:

Does that take into account the capital cost of the car? Because in my, admittedly little, experience, the cost of a car is far greater on Australia than the UK.

Only for some...I remember Ford Fiestas being expensive in Australia when they're cheap as chips in England. This was years ago though.

But compare Toyotas.   Rav4 Hybrid top of the range AWD.    UKP 49,308.  AUD57,354.    That's about $30,000 Aussie dollars cheaper if you buy in Australia.

On 18/03/2022 at 20:53, Loopylu said:

My sister in law works for Qantas in ticketing at Brisbane International and she told me the rules change daily. Have you looked at the SingaporeAir info I gave you as I don’t believe you need a PCR anymore to transit through Singapore. As SingaporeAir are state owned and based out of Changi they would know the latest position.

Personally I would not fly Qantas internationally because customer service is so poor as demonstrated by the lack of information provided to you on transit arrangements. 
I get email and text advice from SingaporeAir on my health requirements about 2 weeks before flying. 

I went ANA last time, like night and day compared to Qantas or BA.  It's noticeable that nationalised 'national' carriers have treated passengers far better than the privatised national carriers, who've taken Government covid money and then still slashed their staff and services....Qantas totally let Australia down and are struggling to recover services now having got rid of so many staff who were sacked.   It begs the question, privatisation has not outsourced risk when these companies basically threatened to shut themselves down if Government's didn't bail them out, and then sacked staff anyway to keep gioving money to shareholders.  So where is the benefit over nationalised airlines that never threatened that and still managed to keep flying?  No difference, the taxpayer still bears the cost either way? 

Now we have these regional small airlines that took the risk in covid and replaced Qantas, being outcompeted and forced out again by Qantas who are using that bail out money to kill competition again and expect it all to go back to normal.  Sometimes you have no choice but to go with Qantas, but i'll try and use anybody else if i have to.   

All my Virgin miles are also being transferred to Singapore, they did their bit to keep going through the pandemic and incurred huge costs so i'll support them.

I have to say though, Qantas staff have been fabulous, they're far more helpful than Virgin who also shut down, but they seem mightily pissed off and there's little 'national pride' being shown in how they're perceived now.

On 09/07/2022 at 05:44, Richie2022 said:

What I feel a lot of people in the UK don't realise when they move to Australia is that you can't compare wages to wages. The reason for this is the high cost of living in Australia. Food, electronics, furniture etc are all more expensive than the Uk. 

Are electronics more expensive here?  Last time i checked the UK was more expensive, especially for things like TV's and computers, they're far closer to the place of manufacture here.

Here's virtually the same Samsung TV.....4595 UKP, or 4995AUD?  The UK is about 60% more, and they have lower wages anyway...thus far more expensive ?

https://www.harveynorman.com.au/samsung-85-inch-qn85b-neo-qled-4k-smart-tv.html

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/samsung-qe85qn85batxxu-85-smart-4k-ultra-hd-hdr-neo-qled-tv-with-bixby-alexa-and-google-assistant-10236983.html

On 09/07/2022 at 05:44, Richie2022 said:

What I feel a lot of people in the UK don't realise when they move to Australia is that you can't compare wages to wages. The reason for this is the high cost of living in Australia. Food, electronics, furniture etc are all more expensive than the Uk. To register my car here nothing fancy costs $850 per year and we have 2 cars which are a necessity because public transport here is useless. Housing is incredibly expensive especially here to buy. Almost everything is sold by auction which pushes the price up, unless you plan to build which has its own costs and risks. Also being so far from USA, Europe etc makes holidaying there incredibly costly. You also get slightly less holidays here with work getting 4 weeks whereas i believe you get a little more in the UK. There is also a massive drug problem in Australia and it has plenty of crime. Anyone looking at Australia with rose coloured glasses id say just really think about what it is you want. If you also haven't guessed currently living in Melbourne and planning on moving back to the UK with my wife and Daughter.

They used to use a 2.2 ratio for cost of living taking into account exchange rates, but that is changing now.  If you want the same UK convenience of everything on the doorstep it does not exist anyway outside city centres because it's a bloody big place, but the amount of stuff you can do cheaply, or for free, is impressive.  You just have to adapt, and the "average" person has obviously made and saved a lot more money in Australia and enjoys a higher quality of life.  It just depends how you measure that and what you're comfortable with.

I dont recognise the 4 week leave thing, I've never seen so many people regularly not turn up to work and the public holidays are stupendous, plus you can purchase leave and then take months off.....my missus has 2 years of personal leave and 22 weeks of "holiday" leave in the bank. That's either a career break with full pay, personal leave on full pay, or early retirement and long service leave.  The flexible arrangements are a response to the remoteness and the desire to travel further, which you can often not do over a few weeks. You have to work to earn it though, you don't get it as a new starter without putting the effort in.   We don't miss out on holidays either, we try and go overseas at least once a year, and do about 7 long weekends or coast trips. The rest of the time, if you get to live in a good place with good weather, then holidays aren't the necessity they are in the UK (just looking at the airport queues and people desperate to get away to sit on a decent beach for a few weeks). 

USA flights are very reasonable from Australia, but the USA is becoming more expensive for both British and Australians due to depreciating currency against the USD.  Try SE Asia, try Japan, try India, even the middle east if you like that sort of thing on a direct non-stop flight...timezones are not as bad, prices are good on an Australian wage, and they're probably more culturally enriching than retrenching to the UK or USA which are not going to teach you anything that you don't already know about.

On 22/06/2022 at 19:56, newjez said:

You can buy seeds online in the UK for your "seed collection". Apparently you're not allowed to grow them they're not cheap.

Years ago my local paper had a front page story on weed plants discovered growing in the plant boxes outside McDonalds on the High Street.  I knew the guy in the photograph pointing at them, I also knew he was the one who'd planted the seeds !

3 hours ago, Loopylu said:

Australia is not a cheap place to live. At least in the UK all medications are free to those on an aged pension… no need if you are on a low income to choose between your health and food/rent.

with the health insurance over here you get straight in for treatments, leaving the ones with no health insurance in the public queue, which should theoretically be reduced making the waiting time shorter for those without insurance.  That's important in these covid days with lengthening public queues due to delays, there is a huge backlog in the public system and so many serious illnesses undiagnosed or untreated.

It's a sort of self-imposed means test leaving the choice to those who can afford to pay, the theory being that if you have the money, you won't put yourself at the mercy of the public system.  They never had full NHS here so no sense of grandfathered entitlement to totally free care at the point of delivery.  The issue is of course, healthcare costs are rising faster than wages so if you want the same treatment, people have to pay more.

8 hours ago, Parley said:

Quoll must live like the Queen. Honestly who spends $7K a month on themselves. No one else i expect. Especially if no rent or mortgage involved.

The ASFA retirement standard for a comfortable lifestyle for a couple is only just over $64K a year.

I probably spend $2000 to $2500 a month and don't feel like i am depriving myself.

To be honest, that's not a bad figure to work on.  If you're retired for 30 years you're still going to need a couple of new cars, some renovations, probably extra healthcare costs as you get older.  $4k is good for a maintenance budget.  We live off $4k a month now and we're both working, but we save a lot more.  We will be able to easily maintain ourselves on $4k post retirement but are budgeting for more than double that because we won't be able to just take a work contract to make up a shortfall.

4 hours ago, calNgary said:

Oh jeez don't buy a car purely to ship and sell, you will be hammered for taxes, if you can get it on a ship even. Unless rules have changed you had to be the registered owner of the vehicle being shipped for a good few month (?maybe 12?) prior to shipping. 

I think on PR it's tax free, but you need to have owned it for 12 months.  Once you've got the headlight swap thing done they're virtually the same...i think Aus have adopted European iso standards now for baby seats, they used to make you render it less safe in order to comply with an inferior standard etc..

On 09/05/2022 at 21:50, pob said:

Ah sorry, I we both got our wires crossed, here. My bad.

Yes we had Ikea stuff in the UK and wanted to use the move as an excuse to upgrade from our uncomfortable Ikea sofa and wanted to buy something more comfortable and longer lasting.

It seems a shame to replace a sofa every two years from Ikea when we could buy a quality item that will last longer.

if you're coming on PR and bringing a container, I would seriously consider getting some good European stuff and bringing it with you as it's a one off opportunity to import tax free as personal possessions, if you can be bothered.  Cars are a good option, Audi, BMW or Mercs are far more expensive here than Europe, you can make $30k.  Meile goods as well.  Good curtain material is hard to get here at a reasonable price too...it sticks with me haviing to pay high labour costs for people to use junk material they supply.   If you're only here for a short while it's not worth the hassle.

Ironically we brought an IKEA oak coffee table that's now about 30 yrs old, and some bespoke oversized sofa chairs we got specially made in the UK, some Brabantia kitchen stuff that costs a fortune here. 

6 hours ago, Ausvisitor said:

I don't know if Bunnings is similar to B&Q never been in a Bunnings. However IKEA is exactly the same furniture in AUS as it is in Sweden and the UK (in fact anywhere)

As part of my past corporate life I did loads of work on logistics with IKEA, the reason they are so cheap is that they sell the same stuff in every country, the only difference is where it needs a plug and they have to put a local plug into the cord ...

Bunnings is more like Home Depot in America, you can drive trucks inside some huge stores and Australia is a massive DIY country, plus they do a lot of trade business whereas B&Q are more aimed at consumers.  My dad spent half his holiday here just wandering round looking at the products he didn't see in the UK anymore, but he was probably part of a dwindling skillset of fixers in the UK who want every possible product.  When Bunnings expanded into the UK they thought they would destroy B&Q on quality and choice, but they couldn't last...there just wasn't the interest in their products or DIY to make it viable, and they probably miscalculated just how many giant 6 burner BBQ's the British would actually see a need for !

I have a very good Swedish architect friend in Sydney who only uses IKEA Australia for food, insists it's not the same quality, with more high class items appearing in Sweden than in Australia.  They share about 10,000 products worldwide (like zigbee smart lights for instance using intra-compatible E27 or B22), but add on a "culture" setting for individual countries and potentially a few thousand different things....just compare the stores in Sweden and China for instance.   You can get some really high quality timber and furniture products in Europe that you can't get in Australia, which is really strange considering the different types of excellent native timber available in Australia, but maybe IKEA aren't interested in a small market or the unsustainablity of Australian wood clearing?  

What is different about Australia is that the last time they did a comparison, Australia's IKEA products were the most expensive in the world.  The Canberra store i think is the only one in the world that doesn't meet the IKEA standard of a minimum population density within a store radius, but they opened it anyway because of the larger amount of spending money that people have here, plus the massive apartment expansion sector going on right now.   Prices have dropped in recent years as the competition has tightened, but they still seemed aimed at fitting out apartments with short life expectancy and disposable products.....some of the rugs they sell you could do a better job of yourself.  

19 hours ago, JMcKie said:

Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone has been to Bali lately and if so what travel insurance did you buy?

The latest rules state travel insurance must cover COVID as a minimum under medical coverage.

Thanks in advance

most policies have now been updated to include a level of covid cover, including credit card travel insurance.   They tend to exclude cover when travel is not recommended,  but include personal delay and medical insurance if you catch covid yourself, or within close family.

You need to google a few options and look at reviews....you just looking for a week, or annual cover?

3 minutes ago, aconcannon said:

That’s exactly our thoughts. We won’t sell our house in Australia and will rent it out, head home for a few years and potentially reassess. We’ve been eligible to apply for our citizenship for a few years, but we haven’t done it yet so will get that sorted as well so we don’t have any visa issues re returning.

that's a no brainer...get onto it because you'll need passports after the citizenship ceremony so a pretty easy process can drag on for a long time, which is not great if you are stuck in limbo with sick family.

We were lucky in that we did our test in Canberra and wanted the passports very quickly, so they fast-tracked our ceremony and did it in the office a few days later and we got it all sorted in 3 weeks.  I don't think that happens anymore especially if you're regional !

52 minutes ago, Amber Snowball said:

A bottom band 5, which is where newly qualified nurses and those new to the nhs who are employed into that band, is £25655 pa. Employee pension contribution comes out of that. London weighting is paid on top. This is for England, NI and Wales. Scotland is similar at £26104.

The jobs have to be matched to the pay bands for Agenda for Change,  so you can’t just pay a higher band because you want to and once employed you can only progress through the pay points in that band at the prescribed times, you can’t fast track, so if moving back and experienced then haggle hard at the time of signing the contract for a higher starting point! I moved back into a band 6 role and started 3(?) pay points up rather than on the bottom of that band.

Does any of this make sense?

Yes

8 hours ago, blondie said:

Theones who moved back to the UK out of sentiment and homesickness...they seem ok but none enjoy the lives they had here,certainly not from a financial, quality or contentment perspective.  You seem to have a plan...don't ruin it.

How could you possibly know if returnees enjoy their life in the UK ... what amazing arrogance to assume they don’t  !

 

And even more amazingly arrogant for you not to be able to read the complete sentence in English and yet still make a brazen assumption ! 

Quote

Of all the people i know who've returned from Australia to the UK,