sheene

Absofrigginlutely. And no catching a plane from Stansted surrounded by chavs, to spend 2 weeks in the sun, surrounded by chavs.

verystormy

My daily commute is a little different. It involves a two hour trek through the Congolese rain forest. A break from the heat and humidity of work would be very welcome

paulry

Ouch! Why so much? Here we're paying $450 per week and receiving $384 in the UK. The two houses are as near as dammit the same. The only significant differences are the one here has a garage and is in a nicer suburban area and the one in the UK is less than a 5 min walk from a high speed rail link into London. On balance I think that the London weekly rental should be higher than here but the exchange rate distorts things somewhat. After the new kitchen and full recarpeting goes in in the UK house I calculate that the rent will be equivalent to $439/week.

Pollyana

Sad thing about that is your weekly rent is more than
my weekly wage before the taxman gets his hands on it

MrsE

Sounds good to me!

iamthecreaturefromuranus

$1300 a week is more than the repayments on a $750,000 mortgage...

paulry

A good point. Interest repayment only @ 7% = $1010 PW

But water, rates and maintenance would have to be factored in as well

Wendy

Mine too!

Maybe we need new jobs Polly?

calliope

$1300 per week for a three bed house is excessive but just reflects that the property is in a good area. This $5200 per month, and if a couple earn about 70k each this is affordable. Nice houses where I live don't rent for less than $800 per week.

Wendy

Yeah, add to that the fact they live in Sydney and I'm in Adelaide = a huge price difference. Plus I'm single and on less than $50k a year so have to be more careful with my cash

Loch Lomond

To pay $5200 in rent a month regardless of the property, tells me the tenants expect the housing marking to drop significantly otherwise they would put that money into their own mortgage.

Turban Explorer

I used to pay well over $1k per week on a 2 bed flat in Sydney harbour and didn't think the market was necessarily about to drop. There are a myriad of reasons why people don't want to buy.

paulry

+1

Beoz

+2. The thought of paying a bank a load of interest or someone else's morgtage? What's the difference?

MrJenkins

We find activities for the kids are generally a lot cheaper here (Sydney). In the UK I always felt I was getting ripped off when doing “stuff” with kids. Visiting national parks is cheap if you have a annual pass ($65 per year in NSW) , free BBQ access included. Fishing licence is around $30 per year for NSW (I’m not sure what it is in the UK but I bet a lot more and fishing here is a 1000 times better)

Parking at train station is free, trains are cheaper and as already said the sunshine and beaches all free