Kiangsu

Hi I am a newbie here and have just recently found out that I have got the chance to relocate to Brisbane. As I am sure you are all aware there are so many questions I have and would appreciate if anyone could help me answer. My situation is a little unusual as I will be at the university of queensland in Brisbane but will still be paid by the job I am in now so I am sorted. The main things are about jobs and accomodation: My husband will be coming with me so are there any good websites for finding jobs before we get there? He is in the Golfing industry but is pretty much up for doing anything.

We will need accommodation when we are out there as niether of us have been to Brisbane before we dont have any idea of good/bad, nice/horrible areas. I dont particullay want to live in the city but dont have a clue where to start - what areas would be recommended for living? we would only need a max of two bed accomodation and as cheap as possible without it being in a dodgy area.

The other area is transport we would like to get a car but not spend too much money on one. Are there good used car dealers that would do a good deal?

Finally as I am not sure how long we will be out there we are going to rent out the house we own over hear? Has anyone had experience renting their properties if so did you do it through a letting agent (has that worked out) just general advice on letting our house as I am unsure where to even start and obviously I worry that if there is no one renting it then we have to foot the cost!?!

Sorry for the long post so many questions!

Thanks

suzimc

Hi Kiangsu,

Congratulations on your great opportunity! Brisbane is a fantastic city.

I am currently an ex-pat with my husbands company in the US, so in many ways I can identify with your situation. We are also in the process of applying to live in Australia.

There are a whole host of employment agencies with websites out there, some of the big ones include:

www.seek.com.au/
www.mycareer.com.au/
www.careerone.com.au/

It depends on exactly what your husband does within the golf world whether these websites will be of use to him, he might be better of trying to look for some more specialised agencies. It could also be worth him speaking to all his industry contacts to see if there are any in-roads there - no matter how distant a contact miight seem it is worth following it up just in case. I have found over here that people are suspicious of whether I am in for the duration as I am here due to my husbands job, and I received feedback from a couple of interviews stating that as the reason they didn't choose to employ me. Networking, even if it has been purely social initially, has by far been my main source of good job leads.

I can't offer that much advice in terms of areas, but my brother in law and his family live in the Ferny Grove area which is about 1/2 hour out of the city by train/car and by all accounts it seems quite nice. You don't feel like you are anywhere near the city, but it is still conveniently close by. You could try looking on the following real estate areas to get an idea of areas and prices:

www.domain.com.au
www.realestate.com.au
www.justlisted.com.au

In terms of letting out your UK property, we have also done this, and it has not been as plain sailing as I would have first hoped! We are very lucky in that our very good friend and neighbour in the flat below us agreed to be the property manager for us, which not only cut costs for us, but also meant that someone was on hand should there be an emergency and they could also keep an eye on the tenants and make sure there was nothing shifty going on.

Our first set of tenants ended up giving us no end of problms so when the contract ended we booted them out rather than renewing. We've changed agencies that we listed with, but at the end of day they are all out to get their commision and as long as the people they ;place look ok on the paperwork they will advise you to take them on.

We have also included in the rent this time a cleaner to come in fortnightly, as we visited the UK in June, inspected our flat and were devestated to see the state of it. You cannot legally insist that they have the cleaner however, so be prepared to take a lower rent without if the tenants request it.

All in all we are down by about 300 GBP after 6 months of renting the property out, but that doesn't take into account how much nearer we are to having the mortgage paid off, and any appreciation in value the property might have had (doubtful in the current markt but more likely in the long term), and above all we have something to fall back on if for any reason the visas didn't come through.

Good luck with it all, I can give you details of some more property websites and some more employment sites to try if you want any more, just let me know.

Sorry I've been going on for ages , but you had so many questions that I could really identify with! Good luck and enjoy
Suzi