Moving To Adelaide

[BeauVinyl]

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everyone.

In these troubling times of Covid 19 I hope all are well.

I write to inform you all that myself and my family (wife, son of 12 and daughter of 9) intend to relocate to Adelaide in the next 3-6 months. It’s a variable date as we have accepted an offer on the sale of our house but at present, with lots of people working from home (solicitors especially), a date to leave the UK is hard to come by.

I am writing this to capture the positive and negative aspects of moving from the UK to Australia in these incredibly uncertain and difficult times for all so without further ado here is a bit about me and my family’s situation:

Our Visa:

We have a Skilled Independent Subclass 189 visa so we are classed as Australian residents and can work anywhere in Australia, the only thing we cannot do is vote but currently we can fly into Australia. We received the visa in October 2018 which gave us 5 years to relocate to Australia (strangely enough it falls on my birthday, October the 13, so every birthday has been an odd milestone). We received this visa as my wife is an Ophthalmic/theater nurse so is wanted in Australia. My wife is currently going through the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) registration process and has been placed in route 1 of 3 so we hope to have her approval in the next 4-6 weeks. This has been a nightmare and if anyone wants more info on this then please let me know and I/we can let you know the issues we have faced.

Our plans:

We want to be in Adelaide by September as we want our son to be in school (probably primary) by then. He is currently in his first year of secondary (UK) now but where we live (a very small ‘local’ town) the school situation is average at best and we feel that coming over to Australia will give him a new lease of life (a kick up the arse) that he needs. He was birthed/born in February so the school year he will be in is negotiable, but we are ok with this. We plan to relocate to Hallets Cove or around that area, anyone have any comments on this? We hear that Hallets Cove is hilly and windy and called ‘Little Britain’, not because there is only one gay in the village but because when it was being built a lot of English relocated there, is this correct?

I’ve worked for a global company for 17 years as a Production Director, so I hope to have some transferable skills, I’ve looked at LinkedIn jobs and most of the usual job sites that spew up 15 to 20 jobs a day in Adelaide, is this correct? Could anyone let me know what the job market is like over there as in, are there jobs going round for all? I am not afraid to start from ‘the bottom up’ in career fields so hope to get something pretty much straight away when we come out of the 2-week quarantine.

Living arangements

Reading most sites, the rentals in Australia are a nightmare so we hope to Airbnb it for 2-3 months, does anyone have any other comments/suggestions on this? We will be coming over with our house sale gains (AUS $300,000) is this a decent deposit on a house and if so, how soon can you buy once you relocate over to Australis or is it all dependent on your jobs? We’ve looked at this on many sites but all the sites we have looked at all seem to contradict one another so we are interested to hear what you all have to say on this.

So after the above I’ll sign off with a cheerful farewell and a hope that the above ‘wall of text’ will interest some people. If people could answer our questions then that would be fantastic, and if people have questions to ask us the please do, I look forward to answering all questions posed to me.

I look forward to hearing from you all soon,

Regards,

Beau Vinyl

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Johnny Kash]

Hi, and welcome to Adelaide (for when you do eventually land up here) 

We looked at Hallett Cove and yes, there are a lot of Brits down that way which can be a good thing or not, depending how you look at it.   We ended up buying in South Brighton just up the road, you do get a lot for your money in Hallett Cove but theres no real centre and I think if we were to buy down that way we'd look at Port Noarlunga instead.

Job wise sounds like your wife will be in high demand in healthcare, its an ageing population here in SA.   For you, the ADL job market is a funny one.   We both came here with no jobs lined up and I started off working in a car wash for minimum wage taking orders from an 18 year old (at the ripe old age of 37)!  Its often said its who you know in Adelaide and theres a fair bit of truth in that.   But once you get Aussie references and a bit of work experience it starts to come together and I now have a decent gig at the Federal government.   I found it quite tough at the start, what you'd done in the UK or who you'd worked for was largely discounted I found, they want to know what youve done here.

We have a 5 year old son who's thriving in the Aussie school system, having said that he was at kindy in Kendal, a small town in the Lake District, and he did just fine there too.  

Aussie/Adelaide rentals are indeed a nightmare in my opinion.  If you can get one via gumtree or similar then go for it.   If you go through agents you get tied to 12 month leases, if you buy during that 12 months youre breaking lease and have all kinds of issues arising there.  Very inflexible and whenever Ive suggested a rolling lease the agents have looked at me like ive got an extra head  

Air bnb is flexible but can work out very expensive, to be honest you may have to bite the bullet and commit to renting for 6 months/1 year, if you can somehow deal direct with a landlord to give you that flexibility when buying that would be better.  The market for both rentals and buying in Adelaide is competitive right now.   AUD300k deposit more than enough unless youre buying a mansion

 

Cheers and Good luck!

[JetBlast]

Hello,

There are lots of poms in Hallets Cove. In fact it's quite embarrassing, we are supposed to be integrating not setting up little britain. Personally I would avoid the area anyway as some of the surrounding suburbs are a little daggy.

The property market is hot here. Both sales and rentals are can be snapped up in just a few days. It works on the terms of the real estate agents - not something I particularly like!

I agree with the above about the job situation. I was lucky and managed to snap up an ideal job 5 mins from home. One you get your foot in the door you should be ok.

Cheers

[BeauVinyl]

Johhny Kash and JetBlast, thank you for taking the time out and replying to my post. I really appreciate it and for the comments that are incredibly insightful.

We have read and understand that rentals over there are a REAL pain to get so this is something we must investigate and decide on. We do understand that we will need to take a financial hit somewhere and this is probably, for the short term, where we’ll take it. The Air BnB option does give us flexibility that we want, especially as we are still indecided on the location we'd like to settle. We know it will be South Adelaide as we have researched most of the suburbs (homely.com.au being a great starting point for us) but listening to what JetBlast said about Hallets Cove I’d agree with what they had to say regarding integrating. We want to live in a diverse environment unlike here in the UK (small market town, 0% diversity) so moving from the UK to somewhere with lots of English isn’t what we want for ourselves or our children, so we’ll look at places around Hallets Cove, maybe towards the East.

We do know a friend of a friend of a friend that live in Noralunga and they like it down there so there always that area to investigate but, in all honesty, I’d like to be closer to the city and Hallets Cove distance feels good to me. I have also read that South Brighton is a great suburb to live in as well so there are options.

We still are looking to move over when our house sells but at present it is taking the solicitors, on average, 12-18 weeks for a sale to go through and the chain we are in is tiny. The frustrating thing for us is not having a move date cemented in so looking for work and contacting schools is tricky without an actual arrival and post quarantine date sorted. We feel like we are in a weird ‘limbo’ at present, but I assume most, if not all, people felt like this when you all made the move over there.

So once again I’d like to thank Johhny Kash and JetBlast for their replies and insightful informatio and I look forward to hearing from anyone else who has any opinions on this thread

I’ll wish you all a happy Easter and I’ll update soon when I have news.

Beau Vinyl

 

 

[Marisawright]

On 03/04/2021 at 11:23, BeauVinyl said:

We want to be in Adelaide by September as we want our son to be in school (probably primary) by then.

I'm not sure why you'd see September as such a milestone?  I can see it means he doesn't have to start a new school year in the UK, butif he starts in September/October in Australia, back in primary school, he'll be joining at the tail end of the school year when everything is winding down, and then in February 2022 he'll presumably start the new school year in secondary school, not necessarily with the kids he's got to know in primary.

On 03/04/2021 at 11:23, BeauVinyl said:

Reading most sites, the rentals in Australia are a nightmare so we hope to Airbnb it for 2-3 months

Comparing it with finding rentals in the South of England a few years ago, I don't see much difference, frankly.  Real estate agents touch up photos and misrepresent properties, so you'd be a fool to take on a rental in either country without viewing it first. Therefore an Airbnb or a holiday flat is a must.  Most people book 4 to 6 weeks and that's enough.  You can always extend if not.  Look at sites like Stayz as well as Airbnb.  

The only real difference we found with renting was that British rentals were more likely to be 6 month leases. But breaking a 12 month lease is not a big deal.  All you have to do is notify the landlord/agent in writing.  The landlord may ask you to pay for their advertising fees and admin costs to re-let the property, which is reasonable in the circumstances.  The new tenant gets a new lease so there's no lingering liability.   It's only a hassle if the market is slow, because you'll have to keep paying the rent until they find a new tenant, even if you've already moved out.

Agents may give you a funny look when you ask about rolling leases, but that's because they don't recognise the jargon.  Once a 6-month or 12-month lease expires, it automatically becomes a "periodic tenancy"--in other words, you stay in the property under a month-to-month lease.

@Johnny Kash - No sensible landlord/agent is going to offer you a month-by-month lease, especially if you tell them you're only planning to stay long enough to buy a house. Why would they, when they've got a queue of genuine long-term renters ready to sign up?  If you were trying to rent out your own place, which would you choose?

Edited April 5, 2021 by Marisawright

[Johnny Kash]

1 hour ago, Marisawright said:

I'm not sure why you'd see September as such a milestone?  I can see it means he doesn't have to start a new school year in the UK, butif he starts in September/October in Australia, back in primary school, he'll be joining at the tail end of the school year when everything is winding down, and then in February 2022 he'll presumably start the new school year in secondary school, not necessarily with the kids he's got to know in primary.

Comparing it with finding rentals in the South of England a few years ago, I don't see much difference, frankly.  Real estate agents touch up photos and misrepresent properties, so you'd be a fool to take on a rental in either country without viewing it first. Therefore an Airbnb or a holiday flat is a must.  Most people book 4 to 6 weeks and that's enough.  You can always extend if not.  Look at sites like Stayz as well as Airbnb.  

The only real difference we found with renting was that British rentals were more likely to be 6 month leases. But breaking a 12 month lease is not a big deal.  All you have to do is notify the landlord/agent in writing.  The landlord may ask you to pay for their advertising fees and admin costs to re-let the property, which is reasonable in the circumstances.  The new tenant gets a new lease so there's no lingering liability.   It's only a hassle if the market is slow, because you'll have to keep paying the rent until they find a new tenant, even if you've already moved out.

Agents may give you a funny look when you ask about rolling leases, but that's because they don't recognise the jargon.  Once a 6-month or 12-month lease expires, it automatically becomes a "periodic tenancy"--in other words, you stay in the property under a month-to-month lease.

@Johnny Kash - No sensible landlord/agent is going to offer you a month-by-month lease, especially if you tell them you're only planning to stay long enough to buy a house. Why would they, when they've got a queue of genuine long-term renters ready to sign up?  If you were trying to rent out your own place, which would you choose?

well we found breaking lease was a big deal.   As soon as we exchanged contracts on our house purchase we gave notice and offered to work with the agent to get the rental leased and avoid a void period.   They refused to even start marketing it until we handed the keys back.   We found potential tenants ourselves and again they refused to even start processing their application until we vacated, meaning those potential tenants went elsewhere.

Surprise surprise, this resulted in a void period of almost 3 months!   So the landlord/agent starts coming after us for the loss of rent, around $5.5k!   We had to go to SACAT tribunal with a counter claim of failure to mitigate loss from the agent and settled on one months loss of rent, all of which could have been avoided had the landlord and agent worked with us from the outset.

We found most ADL rental agents would insist you sign up to another fixed term (usually 12 month) lease.   Timing the purchase of a house with the end of a lease is pretty much impossible

Compare this to our last rental experience in the UK, after the first 6 months the agent/landlord was fine with us going onto a rolling lease, 2 months notice either party.   As a landlord myself in Edinburgh I also offered this to my tenants once they'd been through the initial 6 months and proved themselves to be good tenants - flexibility on either side and a bit of give and take, something Ive found sadly lacking in Adelaide rental agents.

[Marisawright]

24 minutes ago, Johnny Kash said:

well we found breaking lease was a big deal.   As soon as we exchanged contracts on our house purchase we gave notice and offered to work with the agent to get the rental leased and avoid a void period.   They refused to even start marketing it ...

I suspect if you'd made an immediate threat to go to the Tribunal, they would've changed their tune.  They would've known full well that they're required to take every effort to relet.   Sadly, too many dishonest agents rely on tenants not knowing their rights.

Interesting that Adelaide agents insist on you renewing the lease for another 12 months.  Under the terms of the standard fixed-term lease, it's automatic that once your initial term expires, you just go on a periodic tenancy (i.e. rolling lease), without any need for further paperwork or discussion.   That mechanism is written into the fixed-term leases in SA in exactly the same way as in NSW and Victoria.  In NSW or Vic, you may be asked if you'd like to sign up for another year, but most agents just let the lease roll over (I suspect because it means they don't have to do any paperwork!).  

I wonder what they'd say if they said you must renew the lease and you said "no, thank you"?  Would they really insist you move out and give themselves all the work of finding a new tenant?  It's not as if they can threaten to evict you on the day the fixed lease terminates, because they can't stop the lease turning into a periodic lease.  They have to give you a month's written notice and it can't be conditional (i.e they can't say, "renew the lease by .... otherwise take this letter as notice"). 

Edited April 5, 2021 by Marisawright

[JetBlast]

5 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

I wonder what they'd say if they said you must renew the lease and you said "no, thank you"?  Would they really insist you move out and give themselves all the work of finding a new tenant?

You have to give them 3 months notice that you don't want to renew. If you miss this you will be automatically in a new lease.

[Marisawright]

21 minutes ago, JetBlast said:

You have to give them 3 months notice that you don't want to renew. If you miss this you will be automatically in a new lease.

From the standard SA rental agreement

12. Termination at end of fixed term A landlord or tenant must give at least 28 days’ notice to the other to end a fixed agreement at the expiry of the term. The agreement continues as a periodic tenancy if no notice is given.

It is possible agents aren't using the standard lease agreement, but I wonder if they are breaching the Act by doing so?   I notice this provision has only been in place since 2014 so maybe some agents are still using an older version and getting away with it, because tenants don't know any better.

But actually, finding solid information about renters' rights in SA seems to be difficult compared to other states. Maybe a reflection of something....

Edited April 5, 2021 by Marisawright

[JetBlast]

4 hours ago, Marisawright said:

From the standard SA rental agreement

12. Termination at end of fixed term A landlord or tenant must give at least 28 days’ notice to the other to end a fixed agreement at the expiry of the term. The agreement continues as a periodic tenancy if no notice is given.

It is possible agents aren't using the standard lease agreement, but I wonder if they are breaching the Act by doing so?   I notice this provision has only been in place since 2014 so maybe some agents are still using an older version and getting away with it, because tenants don't know any better.

But actually, finding solid information about renters' rights in SA seems to be difficult compared to other states. Maybe a reflection of something....

That’s the other way around.

The landlord has 28 days as you quoted. But the tenant has 3 months to end the lease. 

[Marisawright]

1 hour ago, JetBlast said:

That’s the other way around.

The landlord has 28 days as you quoted. But the tenant has 3 months to end the lease. 

But there's nothing in the standard lease document about the lease renewing automatically for another 12 months, it just goes on to periodic tenancy (which is month by month)

[North to South]

Hi, as a newbie to Adelaide I can tell you it's a great place to live and so far am enjoying the life here.  I made a couple of 4/5 days visits prior to moving here which gave me a good sense on where I wanted to live, but am now living in Burnside which wasn't even on my list of places.  Before I came I looked down at properties at Hallet Cove and up at Golden Grove, but it's not until you're here, you realise quite how far out they are from the CBD if you want to travel in each day.  That said, Hallet Cove is a great and the beach and walks around the conservation park are beautiful.  

Our short-list of places to live were Craigburn Farm, Blackwood, Belair, Stirling and Aldgate but having viewed houses there, they are lovely, but certainly with Belair, Blackwood, Craigburn Farm I didn't like the one route in/out option where traffic in the peak is very busy.  Stirling and Aldgate are still my favourite places, but just couldn't find the right place there.

I would recommend looking at the schools and select some that you like, then look at houses around those areas as that will give you a sense.  When we arrived we took an Airbnb for a few months, initially in Newton and then Athlestone which were fine, but then bought as soon as we could to avoid renting and converting cash into dead money.  We moved into our house exactly 8 weeks after leaving quarantine and whilst the house market is quite tight, we found that being non-dependent buyers we were in a good position.

Schooling here is very different, my daughters in Y10 and initially she did have some bad days because she was the new girl and didn't know anyone, but now she's thriving and loving the variety of subjects on offer, certainly far more than the UK.

Adelaide doesn't have the glitz and glamour of the other major cities, I tend to look at is as the Manchester of Australia whereby it's got everything you need, but without the hustle and bustle and glamour.  The beaches here are amazing, the countryside in places breathtaking, the cafes/restaurants are great and overall we've not looked back and are so glad that we moved here.  I love the countryside and to be able to get in the car and drive for 5-7 mins and be high up in the hills with great walks for me is far more than I could ever get in Sydney or Melbourne.  And whilst my favourite beach at Port Noalunga is an hours drive, it's worth every minute of the drive.

If you're looking for schools, check out BetterEducation as I found that quite useful, also the SA Education website as you can put a postcode/address in and it will tell you what schools you're zoned too.

Mortgages here are based on what you can afford, not multiples and it's quite straightforward once you're employed and you shouldn't have any problems with the equity on your home.  The hardest thing will be deciding where to live given the places available.  All I'd say, is look at Realestate.com to get a sense on budget/places etc, but also look at travel times to where you/wife might be working as while they say it is a 20 minutiae city, invariably it's 35 mins in peak times.

Happy to help if I can

[BeauVinyl]

Hi North to South.

I really appreciate you taking the time out and replying to my original post. The information you have given me here is, honestly, so welcome at this time.

We have sold the house but as the market here is so fragile our solicitor has told us not to book flights until the contract has been signed, this would have been good in non-Covid times but talking to travel agents there is a 6-8 week waiting list on economy flights to Australia with Singapore Airlines. This does put a slight spanner in the works, but it is a spanner that can be sorted. When we started the move to Australia (7 years ago) we know there would be bumps in the road and what we have overcome, this is not a major bump.

I’m glad to hear that you have done exactly what we plan to do. We plant to quarantine then Air BnB it / Staytz for 8/10 weeks then hopefully buy straight after. My wife (nurse) has this morning had her APHRA approved and now needs to ‘show in person’. This is great news for us as she can now apply for jobs and tick the ‘APHRA approved’ box.

I am also glad to hear that you were in a strong position to buy as you were non-dependant buyers, does a non-dependent buyer mean you were a ‘cash buyer’ then? We would need a mortgage to but a house but would have a decent deposit to put down on a house so I hope this would favour us.

Regarding schools, thank you for the BetterEducation tip, I will look at that when deciding on a school. We have looked at schools recently and hope to contact them in the coming days.

We have found that, for suburbs to move to, homely is a good website so we have been reading through the list of suburbs that are on that in the Adelaide area, Flagstaff Hill is an area we are currently looking into but anywhere South East of the CBD is somewhere we like the sound of and being honest, if we could cut our daily UK commute time of 45mins down to 30mins that would be a big bonus so living 30mins away from work would feel like a luxury to us, especially my wife.

I have just gotten of FT with my sister in Melbourne and she has, again, told me what a wonderful place Australia is and that, for the kids, it opens lots of opportunities and for me and my wife, looking at the bigger picture, we plan to move to Australia for the children’s futures, for their careers but also broadening their horizons.

I will certainly post any other updates when I get them.

I hope you keep safe and enjoy Adelaide,

All the best,

Beua Vinyl

 

[North to South]

21 hours ago, BeauVinyl said:

Hi North to South.

 

I really appreciate you taking the time out and replying to my original post. The information you have given me here is, honestly, so welcome at this time.

 

We have sold the house but as the market here is so fragile our solicitor has told us not to book flights until the contract has been signed, this would have been good in non-Covid times but talking to travel agents there is a 6-8 week waiting list on economy flights to Australia with Singapore Airlines. This does put a slight spanner in the works, but it is a spanner that can be sorted. When we started the move to Australia (7 years ago) we know there would be bumps in the road and what we have overcome, this is not a major bump.

 

I’m glad to hear that you have done exactly what we plan to do. We plant to quarantine then Air BnB it / Staytz for 8/10 weeks then hopefully buy straight after. My wife (nurse) has this morning had her APHRA approved and now needs to ‘show in person’. This is great news for us as she can now apply for jobs and tick the ‘APHRA approved’ box.

 

I am also glad to hear that you were in a strong position to buy as you were non-dependant buyers, does a non-dependent buyer mean you were a ‘cash buyer’ then? We would need a mortgage to but a house but would have a decent deposit to put down on a house so I hope this would favour us.

 

Regarding schools, thank you for the BetterEducation tip, I will look at that when deciding on a school. We have looked at schools recently and hope to contact them in the coming days.

 

We have found that, for suburbs to move to, homely is a good website so we have been reading through the list of suburbs that are on that in the Adelaide area, Flagstaff Hill is an area we are currently looking into but anywhere South East of the CBD is somewhere we like the sound of and being honest, if we could cut our daily UK commute time of 45mins down to 30mins that would be a big bonus so living 30mins away from work would feel like a luxury to us, especially my wife.

 

I have just gotten of FT with my sister in Melbourne and she has, again, told me what a wonderful place Australia is and that, for the kids, it opens lots of opportunities and for me and my wife, looking at the bigger picture, we plan to move to Australia for the children’s futures, for their careers but also broadening their horizons.

 

I will certainly post any other updates when I get them.

 

I hope you keep safe and enjoy Adelaide,

 

All the best,

 

Beua Vinyl

 

Hi,

I did find myself in your position when selling my house in the UK and it is quite stressful.  I eventually completed when I was on the plane and only exchanged the day before, but I kept pushing the agents/buyers that I had a committed date that I had to leave by.  I'd also recommend putting a covid clause in the contract so that if Australia closes its borders/transit routes to Australia, you can delay the sale of the the house for X days so that if after exchanging Australia for some reason closes it's borders, you're not left homeless.  During my sale I had to cancel some flights as the buyer was too slow, then I had to cancel others due to Singapore closing it's border and eventually booked with Qatar, in fact I booked two flights one month apart  as a back up in case one was cancelled.  Just check the cancellation policy before doing this.  Qatar were fine on refunds and I got the money back within a few days of cancelling.  Just also bear in mind that flights still have limited capacity and sadly economy tickets tend to get bumped in favour of business class, which is purely economic for the airline, but not great for the consumer.   I would avoid Singapore Airlines as I still don't think you can transit through Singapore to Adelaide, so look at Qatar as they've been the most reliable coming into Adelaide.  

I looked at Flagstaff Hill, Craigburn Farm and Aberfoyle Park and they are lovely areas and you get a lot of house for the money, but I just found they were too far out for me to commute into the CBD each day.  I used to work in London and had a 1 hour commute and now have a 15 min on a good day and 35 on a bad day and even now that seems long once you've been doing it a while.  Memories soon fade of the UK commutes!

The process of buying a house here is easier, but initially more stressful.  We bought a house on a 'best offers by date' and after some negotiation we managed to get it as we had nothing to sell and finance was in place.  Once you make an offer that's accepted you have 48 hours (cooling off period) to get the house inspection completed in along with any other inspections you need.  Once this time has passed, you are committed to buy.  I had to pay 5% deposit five days after the cooling off period and then settled 23 days after that.  Most of the process is quite straightforward, but as it's so different from the UK, you just have to make sure you buy the right house as there's no pulling out as you can in the UK.  Finance should be okay as long as you have a job, or a job offer and I can share details of someone that I talked too about finance options.

I would use RealEstate.Com.AU for the house search as all agents use it, Domain is number two, but not all houses are listed here.  Homely is useful, but it's like TripAdvisor and very subjective on peoples views.  Most suburbs tend to merge into one another here, but for me I wanted to live in the Hills, but now glad that I live in the Eastern Suburbst as it's so easy to get to most places during the week and weekend.  I think the main thing is looking at where you think you'll be working and then hone in on some suburbs that look nice and just ask on here for peoples view on what they think of them.  Also look on google earth and do some street views around the area to see what you like.  Most people do drive to places as there's no 'town centres', just suburbs with a small selection of shops, restaurants cafes etc.

If you're looking down at SE, then I think Flinders is the main Hospital down that part so getting there from Flagstaff wouldn't be a problem and you're only 20 minute drive across to the beach at Brighton.  I'd encourage you to make contact as soon as you can and start building up the relationship with the recruiters so they know you're coming, what you want to do etc so that you have a head start when you get here.

It is strange that once you've been here for a while you tend to forget you're in Australia.  Certainly for me I have.  Initially it was 'wow', look at that, shall we go here, shall we go there etc and pinching ourselves that we made it.  But now we take it for granted and only when we go somewhere new you feel you're living the dream that for many years you dreamt of.  I've been fortunate and have travelled to Australia most years since my first trip on 04 and while Melbourne and Sydney are great, to me they don't have the variety of attractions that Adelaide has on it's doorstep.  The beaches here are amazing, the hills are beautiful and the wine regions are just lovely and all this is within an hour of the city. 

With regards to schools.  You will find some will respond and some don't as they prefer you to be here rather than a speculative email, that's what I found.  We elected to continue down the private route the same as we did in the UK as that gave us more freedom on where we wanted to live.  I know it's not everyones taste, but it just took one level of stress away from us.  Most schools do have websites that are very informative, so I would just look at those, shortlist some, then when you have some dates start to contact hem to say you're arriving on X date and do you have places etc.

Selling the house at anytime in the UK is stressful, but during Covid it's harder, but it's worth every second of stress you go through to get here!

 

 

 

[BeauVinyl]

Hi North to South,

Thank you again for your reply. As like all house moves, we have a busy weekend with solicitors then we here nothing for 3-4 weeks, so we are finding it a little stressful to say the least but reading your emails and your replies it does help us a lot, so I thank you for your response and honesty.

As we have the 189 Subclass visa it gives us Australian Residency so I am hoping that getting into Australia is not going to be one of our bigger issues, although with flights that could be a tricky one. I feel we have time on our side and with me having my second COVID jab mid-July we can look to the end of July, early August for flights (wife is a nurse and has already had her jabs). Talking to the Flight Centre there are economy seats available around that time, but they are getting snapped up quickly, so we’ll have to take a risk on these seats soon but like you kindly mentioned, I’ll read the small print and the COVID restrictions / cancellation policies.

Once again, thank you for your reply and I’ll update when I have anything to update from this end.

Regards,

Beau Vinyl

[Lavers]

Hi Beau

We moved to Adelaide last June with 2 girls 10 & 4 at the time.

Your biggest thing to look at is schooling, if your going private then it isn't an issue but if your using government schooling then these are zoned.

As North to South says use bettereducation for school rankings and also education.sa.gov.au for school zones.

We are currently in North Plympton, 10min to the city and 10min to the beaches. We are only renting though and will be moving further south to buy as the house prices in this area have gone ridiculous. Corner plots are selling for $900,000 plus.

Rental market is competitive but you will find something, look at tenant portal and you may be able to set up your account before you come. Most real estate agencies use this to allow you to apply for properties. I think we where lucky due to covid and got the 1st property we applied for which is a nice new build.

Rental prices and property prices are rocketing at the minute .

Like I say though your biggest decision is schooling.

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Lavers

[BeauVinyl]

Hi Lavers, thank you for the reply to my topic.

 

We are looking to move to the southern area of Adelaide, around the Hallet Cove / Flagstaff Hill area, we hope that with a decent deposit and the two of us working we’ll be able to get on the housing ladder.

Regarding schools, we will be emailing the schools in those areas nearer the time we land and get through quarantine. It’s all a bit up in the air at present with our house sale still going through but no date as yet and with our flights changing dates from the 12^th August to the 13^th (this has happened this second as I type to you now) we are still in uncertain waters at present but hope that in the next 4-6 weeks all will become a little clearer.

Regards to your Adelaide move, are you glad you did it? Would you have changed anything about it?

Beau

 

 

[Lavers]

No worries

Both nice areas and we like the feel off them. We originally looked at hallet cove/sheidow park before coming to Aus and had no idea that it has a big English population. Whether more English move there because of that or because the houses are good value there compared to other suburbs.

Hallet cove has good primary schools but I don't think that the high school is the best. If you are at Flagstaff Hill then the zoned high school is Aberfoyle high, which we looked at the other week as my daughter starts high school next year.

Are you looking at using private or government schools?

Look on realestate and see which areas you can afford, whatever the prices are now slap another $40k as the housing market is booming here as investors from Sydney are buying and renting out.

Your kids will love it over here if they are active, as there is so much to do.

The main thing we would change about our move is that we should have done it sooner haha.

[BeauVinyl]

Hi Lavers,

Thanks for the feedback, I had a feeling you would say that you should have moved there sooner, we are feeling the same at the moment.

Regarding schools, we are looking at the government schools around flagstaff, we have looked at Hallet and, to be honest, we want to move to Australia to live within a more diverse environment so moving somewhere where there are lots of English kind of defeats the object of our move, so we’ll still keep looking.

Thanks for your replay and all the best.

I will have more updates when I get them.

Beau

 

[Lavers]

Brighton secondary school and glenelg primary are supposed to be good schools.

An option could be to rent in an area for 12months to your kids into a good government school, then once there in you can move anywhere.

An option could also build your own house which is what we are just trying to sort out now. You only pay stamp duty on the land rather than the full cost of the house. From what I can see you can build a very nice house for less than you can buy an established home .

Most of our friends are Australian and we do here the odd English accent but it's not as if they are everywhere.

[BeauVinyl]

Lavers,

Building your own house sounds incredible. I wish you all the best with thst.

Beau

[Curly]

Hi sorry for jumping on late in this thread. I noticed you said that you are a production manager so based on that I would say most of your work would be around regency park area as this is a big industrial area. I wouldn’t recommend living around there though. Where you are looking now is a really good area. We have friends there and they like it and we also looked at building around Craigburn farm but was a little over budget in the end but a beautiful place. You would be close to Flinders hospital there too for your wife and only a 30 minute drive if you got a job in the North. 
we ended up building our house at Seaford Heights. It’s down South but up on a hill with a view of the ocean and only 5 minute drive from the beach. I work around Regency park and it’s a 45 minute drive from here but South Road will eventually get a new tunnel but it will be quite some time yet. 
I would just have a look around when you get here and have a feel for the places you are looking. Flagstaff and Blackwood are classed as the hills. The Southern suburbs are more beachy just whatever fits the lifestyle you are looking for really 

[BeauVinyl]

Hi Curly, Thanks for the info.

We are in the UK still but have the flight booked for the 10th of August from London to Singapore, 2-hour layover, then Singapore to Adelaide.

We are nervous about the flight, not the actual flying but if we can actually get on the flight as Australia have halved the people arriving in the country again and I can only assume this will have a knock-on affect for us but currently we haven’t heard anything, so we are still aiming for the 10^th.

Regarding places to stay, thanks for your recommendation in looking about and getting a feel for the place, it’s something we plan to do straight away when we get there, and we hope to get a place asap after we finish staying at the Airbnb.

Beau

 

[Curly]

Hi Beau 

fingers crossed you will be able to get the flight and make your way over. Hopefully the quarantine will go quick for you too. 
 

yeah you are best looking around and seeing what fits you best. The rental market is pretty tough here at the moment so might need to apply for a few places to see if you can get something in place even if it’s just for 12 months until you can work out where you would like to be. I know that is hard with the schooling and we had a similar situation but it all falls into place. You will get a feel for it when your here

[rammygirl]

On 11/05/2021 at 21:20, BeauVinyl said:

Lavers,

Building your own house sounds incredible. I wish you all the best with thst.

Beau

It is pretty common here, plenty of land for sale.  Builders don’t build speculative estates like in the UK, only apartments, if you want a new home you buy land and build.