Keefo

Hi

We are hoping to emigrate to Perth in the next 12 months if the house sells which we have just put on the market. My wife is the main visa applicant and would be earning around $65k-75k, would this be enough for a couple to survive on. We have looked at how much decent rentals cost in Perth and we would be able to afford the rent but just wondered on the cost of everything else. Any answers would be appreciated.
Also what are all the stages in the process of the emigration E.G medicals, removals etc.
Also if anyone out there lived near Hull where did they go for their medical as spire near us do not do them anymore.
Thanks

quoll

On that amount you would probably need to be a two income family in a major city. That's around the average Aus income these days

Your rent alone is going to cost you upwards of $20k pa before you blink and your $ will get you more the further out you go but the spin off is that the transport in to work will take a chunk out of the savings.

If you can both get average salaries you will be laughing but I reckon you will need at least another half average salary to be comfortable, unless you bring over a lot of money with you.

Of course there are folk on here who are doing it with less - heavens knows how they do it. When in Aus I was paying everything by credit card then paying it off each month, running two cars, two phones, one house and no major vices except the occasional travel and without a mortgage/rent my average CC bill was $5k per month (insurances, fuel, utilities, rates, food, clothes, etc they all mount up).

Good luck

Keefo

Thanks for the reply.

We won't be living an extravagant lifestyle we just want to enjoy the better weather and luxuries like been able to travel to a nice beach etc and not having to spend much to be able to do it.
We have seen modern rentals on realestate.com.au website and for we are looking for are around $1100-1200 per month albeit we don't really know which are the better areas admittedly.
I have e-mailed my parents friends who live in Rockingham to see if they can provide a monthly breakdown of water,electricity rates etc.
How easy is it to get a job in OZ if you are willing to work as I might have to attempt anything to bring in a second wage. It is my wifes job that is on the wanted list.

Cheers

eddie007

Even rockingham area has expensive rentals and cheaper ones.. You should be good down here with us on that salary... But your rent may well eat a bigger chunk than you're expecting... in Shocko you dont get much for the 275-300 per week bracket anymore...

trebro

G'day,
Lived in Perth for 20 years, best city in the world to live in, best of luck, go for it.

smidsy

I might be able to help you.

My missus & I moved to Perth about 7 months ago, from Brisbane, but we're originally from Ireland. Been in Aus 2 years.

Perth is still new to us, and we had the same questions.

My wife works as a nurse and earns 75k+, the plus is for overtime, shift allowance etc. She doesnt work any overtime though, but gets the shift allowance like everyone else.

When we moved to Perth we made the decision that I would return to study to do my finals, so about 6 months full time study, and on a single income.

We live in Est. Victoria Park, in a little 3 bed house/villa, its more like an apartment with its own roof, dont need 3 beds, but most houses are like that. Main bedroom is ok, but the other two are little "box" rooms. Rent is $370/wk. If you want CBD access(we're 5k's out, no traffic though during my Wife's shift times, so 10/15 mins drive, stone throw from train, which is 10 mins max), unless you are willing to live in something similar to a council flat, you wouldnt go much lower than that, this close to CBD. You can, but under $500/wk, demand is hugh at the moment, so our place is now considered good value, for what we get.

Our lease was up last week, and we did a lot of searching & viewing recently. I have found, that even an extra 3k's further out(Cannington), rental prices dont drop very much, iv no idea why.

A very good summary of suburbs is this website http://www.viacorp.com/perth-suburbs-compared.html

We got a decent car also, which costs about $600 a month loan repayments.

Water rates are so small, its not factored, about $15 a month

Electricity, hmmm, about $100 a month i think, depends greatly on your air con usage.

Internet/phone/inclusive calls package is $109 a month.

Basically, we find that we are about breaking even. A little bit of savings but not a hugh amount. So yes, you can do it. But you'll be cutting it very tight. You wont be saving much at all, so you'll be financially standing still, and almost certainly start eating into your savings, little by little. It would make a difference if you could do without a car, or buy something just as a run around(about $5000 here, used cars are expensive). If your not walking distance from a train, you'll need a car. Busses are not great here(some are ok, but not many).

Secondly, what this means is, when I start working, which (hopefully!), will be soon, my money will be all savings/bonus money. So we'll be very comfortable after that.

I wouldnt advise you not working at all. Is there any particular reason why you dont think you can ?

Finally & most importantly... Its bloody expensive getting set up in Perth. We were fortunate to have driven over in a caravan, so we stayed in that while we were applying to rent places. Renting a place can take weeks from spotting the right place, to viewing, applying and finally approval. But what if you dont get approval, then you have to do it all again. In the meantime, if your in hotel, you'll be eating away at your savings. You can rent a room, in a house share, best way economically, but many cant stand it. Then also, most(95%) places are unfurnished, furnished - though convenient, usually means rubbish furniture(think of camping tables) & an extra $50/week rent. So you have to buy furniture. It can be done cheaply(IKEA, gumtree(used), and cheap stuff in Kmart/BigW etc). But its going to add up.

nicolac34

I would think you could survive on that but it will be tight. To give you an idea of costs, here's our situation:

Rent: $430 per week. This gets us a 2 bed furnished unit with a garden in Subiaco/Shenton Park - right opposite Kings Park. We got this off Gumtree so didn't need to deal with any agents and the process was quite painless.

Travel: $20 per week each - 1 Zone on the bus to work in the CBD.

Water/Council Rates: $0 - included in the rent (I thought most did out here).

Gas: Comes in quarterly, last bill was about $80.

Electricity: Again quarterly, no air con usage $80, the bill we just got with air-con on most nights $160.

Internet: $40 per month. We got a mobile wifi dongle thing when we arrived which we haven't upgraded yet as didn't want to until we buy something. We get 8GB data per month.

Foxtel: $91 per month. Optional of course, but then you’d have to put up with the shocking TV and millions of adverts in everything. We lasted 3 weeks before caving and giving in to purchasing this. This gets us Sports, all the channels, HD and the facility to Record, FF, RW etc.

Mobiles: $30 per month each, on Optus pay as you go, gives us $350 worth of 'credit'.

Food: Hmmm this is tricky, we probably spend around $120-$180 per week on food for the both of us.

Car: When we first arrived we bought a little Hyundai Excel for $1,500 – this seems to be the cheapest you can get a working car for over here. It was pretty good on petrol consumption, $40 used to fill it up and do 500kms. We’ve now upgraded to a Pajero 4x4 which was $6,500 in good nick for its age (1995) but pretty awful on the petrol consumption, $110 fills it up and it does about 600-700kms. You pay ‘rego’ on cars out here which covers you for basic insurance and road tax. We didn’t bother upgrading to proper car insurance on the Excel, but for the Pajero we did which cost $450 fully comp for the year.

These things are what I’d consider your ‘basic’ costs, after that it’s all about entertainment – which can kill your budget in no time! We probably easily spend about $500 per week on this alone without being particularly extravagant.

Paul872

Keefo,

I've lived in Perth for over 4 yrs now and i think the first thing you will find is that the price of living is extremely high even if your earning over $100K. In comparison to the UK, your wages don't go very far. Basically, if you make good money on your UK house you'll be good to go and it will make resettlement alot less painful. Perth is the second most expensive place to live in the world so be prepared to be poor (or feel poor). Best of luck though mate, if you love 38degree heat you'll be in heaven.... personally, i crave for a bit of snow

smidsy

Thats a good point, I thought of that after I wrote my reply.

Personally, I wouldnt pick Perth for my first time in Aus. Comparing the cities(facilities, events, opportunities) etc to rent costs, Brisbane, Melbourne & Adelaide are better value in my opinion. Each city, for different reasons of course.

I lived in Melbourne for 5 months, Ipswich near Brisbane for 8 months, before coming to Perth. Where the missus got a great job(ie. great experience for a nurses career, where the salary is the same for a crap boring job, as it is for a challengng rewarding job) and so now we have to make it work, at lease for a year or 2(or until she gets preggers).

Iv travelled most of the major roads around Aus by caravan/campervan and if you can get a job(like being a nurse), and you dont need the "big" city, there can be great quality of life in the smaller cities. eg. Townsville, Gold Coast, Coffs Harbour, Cairns, Albany, Broome... ah. there's too many to list.

smidsy

Thats pretty good, excellent location !

Off topic, I bloody HATE our estate agent. Never dealt with one before, and they make you feel like sh1t on their shoe. We're even seriously thinking of buying a house, just cause we hate our agent. I hope they are not all like ours.

Keefo

Thanks for all your answers they are very helpful

Smidsy - No reason why I can't work, I just wanted to know if we could survive on one wage until I found any work. I am a CAD draughtsman, I don't specialise in any particular field and I have worked for various companies over 20 years. I am willing to pick up any kind of work that will help pay the bills. My wife is a Teacher and she has found that western Australia seem to pay the better wage.

Smidsy/Nicolac - Thanks for those price breakdowns they are very useful and it looks like we would be pushing it a little. Nicolac, when you say you spend $500 per week on entertainment what do you do or have I mis understood.

Paul - We hope to make around £40-45k on our home but after fees for estate agents and getting across to OZ etc we may only have £30-35k so not sure if this would be enough as a back up as we don't really want to touch a lot of this money.

We have heard that Adelaide is a cheaper place to live and it's hard no know what the smaller areas away from cities are like as you don't really hear much about them.

My wife and I have been to NZ twice in the last 4 years and really wanted to settle in Blenheim on the south Island but NZ wages are lower than OZ. My wife was offered a job as a teacher in 2009 in Marlborough but we had not sold the house the first time we had it on the market and we didn't really want to let it out.

I have been to OZ 10 years back and was in Brisbane and went to the sunshine coast/gold coast and visitited Sydney.

Really have mixed feelings after seeing your replies but thanks.

Keefo

Keefo

Also forgot to mention that a company on realestate.com.au advertise house and land packages from $220k the company is called affordable living not sure how realistic this is as the houses look very nice.

nicolac34

Yes, I guess we did get a bit of a deal on the Unit in this location - although it is rather old and very dated (and the furniture a bit rubbish!) but still, we are happy because we get to live here and not pay the earth.

Sorry, I should have clarified on entertainment. We probably eat one takeaway and go out for dinner once or twice a week, maybe one night drinking/socialising with friends (although not every week). The odd surfing lesson (again not every week), trip to the Zoo, a museum on a weekend (still in touristy mode) basically all the other bits and pieces you might add that you don't necessarily include in your basic living costs.

Dorothy

$220k will get you a very tiny 3x1 on a postage stamp in a suburb you wouldn't go out in after dark. Realistic building cost for a 3x2 of a decent size on a semi decent sized lot in a decent suburb would be closer to $400k. Add another 10-15% for finishings like window coverings, floor coverings, landscaping, aircon, painting, etc. We built in 2009 and our house and land package was $406k. We're now up to just over $500k spent and we're just about done. Just have to get the painting finished now. Mind you, about $35k of that was the pool, pool fencing and liquid limestone around it.

smidsy

Mind if I ask your location(suburb?), cause thats the kind of budget we were thinking. Just bfor my curiosity.