Dear Friends,
I have applied under visa section VE-175,general skilled migration which grant few days back.So I have planned to move to Australia in coming Jan 2015,need to know the following points.
1.How to select a city to live in & to start life in Australia.
2.How to find a accommodation for temporary basis.
3.Do i have to pay for this accommodation charges before arriving to this country or i can pay after arriving.
4.Since i know no body in Australia,am bit confused how to arrange my accommodation there.

Please help....
Regards,
Rabi

I would select somewhere based on what your occupation is and where it is in demand. Try checking out seek.com.au.

You can try Stayz, Homeaway and airbnb for holiday lets which may be available. There are also hotels, hostels (YMCA) and shares (try gumtree). You probably will need to pay for these before arriving.

Dear Friend,
Thanks for your advise but the sites you are advising seems costlier,As you know i ll be searching a job there which may take 2 to 3 weeks minimum.
so please can you suggest some of less costlier long stay accommodations.

Regards,
Rabi

The cheapest is probably YMCA if there are places and rooms / home shares on Airbnb and gumtree. Did a quick google, and realestate.com.au also do shared accommodation. Where you choose will affect how much you pay but you may be able to get a share for less than $200 week

And unlikely to find job in 2-3 weeks, more like 2-3 months minimum and then waiting few weeks (depending on pay cycle) to get paid so I would highly recommend to have atleast 6 mths worth of funds with you

Yep, would agree with that

Hi Rabi. You've been given some good suggestions for finding cheaper accommodation, hopefully you'll be able to find something that suits you. Please be aware that accommodation of any type in Australia is going to be far more expensive than you are used to - the wages are higher of course, but you are going to need enough funds to keep you until you find work.

I'm a bit concerned that you don't seem to have a lot of information about the basics of living in Australia - where to live, how much accommodation costs - this leads me to wonder how much research you've done into your move.

The very worst thing someone moving to Australia (or anywhere) can do is just hop on the plane and trust that everything will sort itself out. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to do that and it plays a big part in their experience here being not a successful one. You need to get as much information as you can before you arrive - research the employment market in different areas for your profession, work out a rough budget of how much you will need to live on, including your accommodation, food, personal items, transport, health costs, utilities and so on.

I also think that your understanding of 2 - 3 weeks as a minimum time to obtain employment is risky - you need to plan ahead and budget for a much longer period of time. Hopefully you will find employment quickly, but you do need to consider what you will live on if you don't.

As well as seek for employment, and the sites others have recommended for temporary accommodation, you can look at realestate.com.au for an idea of rental costs. Also, you can search for 'cost of living' threads in the Australian section of British Expats, there is a lot of information on here.

I hope you understand that I'm not trying to be negative or off-putting - you've put a lot of work into getting your visa and I think you will have a much better time of it in Australia if you are as well prepared as you can be. Wishing you the best of luck.

I am curious to see how this thread progresses.

Beoz, I give them 3 months or under to be back on the plane.
Under the current economic climate I can't see getting a job within their 3 week expectation.

Playing Devil's Advocate here, but surely you did some research on where your job prospects would be better before you applied? There is a lot of companies making people redundant lately (regardless of skill level or duration of service), and accommodation, rental or otherwise is not cheap.

Do you have sufficient funds to keep a standard of living if you do not find employment in your 2 -3 week expectation (which can sometimes be the processing time for applications for skilled roles)?

What economic climate? Lots of work in many sectors. Not so many in others. By the post that started with Dear Friend, I suspect he or she is unlikely to be a British Expat. Seven Eleven and taxi driving is always an option.

It's an option but they still won't get paid straight away even if by some miracle they land a job straight away. So if, by some miracle, they find and secure a job within 3 weeks, depending on pay cycles most likely looking at min 5 weeks to get first pay... All this factions into calculations...

Forgot to say that as they are planning to arrive in January, no chance of even an interview in first weeks as Australia is "closed" until mid February atleast

Why Beoz? I don't see anything out of the ordinary about the thread?

A lot of migrant workers from third world/ middle income countries (whatever they call them nowadays) do very fine here.

The wife is a tax accountant and you would be surprised how much cash some make as taxi drivers, carers, care givers (for some reason this is one of the well paying) and other manual jobs. You would be surprised how many students or graduate visa holders make more than the average wage.

If the OP's concept of a job is anything to pay bills - then two or three weeks may be fine. Not many people can do a cleaning shift at 3am.

If he is looking for a professional job then that is a different story.