koalakim

As I understood it you had 6 years to sell an overseas property before paying CGT if you had bought here. If you are renting you may not get charged.

paulry

I'm not sure of the finer details because I have resolved that I won't allow that to happen to me but as I understand it, if you buy here while still owning your former UK home the tax exposure is greater because your UK house then becomes an investment property.

TravellerMan

Need the AUD to drop further before we make the move out of here to 'Straya. $2.06 (or whatever you actually get) currently, close to $2.25 would be better.

Beoz

Earning pounds while you are in Straya then?

TravellerMan

Eh? I'm not in Straya, thought that was clear.

Beoz

But you are moving to Oz right? Unless you are earning pounds when in Australia, what's the benefit of earning a low value currency?

TravellerMan

Not talking about what I'm earning. I'm talking about what I'll be transferring. Quite a difference.

What I'm earning either now or in Australia has nothing much to do with the exchange rate, only what I'll be transferring. So I'm rather confused with what you're going on about?

Beoz

Right sorry. I see. Didn't see much value transferring at the current exchange rate. 2.5 - 3 then yes.

paulry

Against the pound it's going up and down like a yo-yo this last 24 hours or so.

The behaviour over the last 5 years looks interesting:
XE.com - GBP/AUD Chart

koalakim

It was 2.48 when we moved in 2007, then sold our place 2.5 years later it had dropped to 2 which I thought was a blip so stupidly we didn't transfer once the funds were in the bank. Then of course we found a block of land to buy and ended up transferring at 1.80 and that was good as it was continuing to plummet. Technically lost a shed load of money which as self-employed people could have made our lives a little more comfortable by having a smaller mortgage. Thank goodness we didn't leave it any longer as it then lost another 30c!

In the few years we've been here things have changed dramatically from the exchange rate to cost of living. If it's important to live in Oz then you may just have to bite the bullet financially, could be ok, could be a disaster but circumstances seem to change pretty quickly these days. Just consider you may never get here!

To be honest once you are here and earning A$ it's not so bad, interest rates are low so our mortgage has dropped a few hundred $ per month. Whatever we lost in funds to buy our place it's way cheaper than renting now!

GarryP

I'd suggest 10 year is more indicative.

China protected Australia's economy (with Labor's help) whilst the rest of the world went to sh*t. We're now reverting to the longer term trend under the mismanagement of the coalition. Realistically it's going to take about another year to reach that point - if China can hang on. If China finally implodes then we'll see that graph spike.

Beoz

Let me re-phrase that for you.

China protected Australia's economy whilst Labor unwound Australia's very good economic standing brought about by the Howard government. As the cycle so typically goes. Let Labor create the mess, let the Coalition clean it up. We are in the clean up phase right now and it aint going to be easy without thrifty spending from the old China. Part of that recovery will be the currency. Regardless of China's current stock issues, which we work themselves out over the next few weeks or month, the dollar will need to slide to accommodate slowing of Chinese investing and as investors pull from risky currencies into more secure places as the world wobbles from Chinese and Greek activities.

GarryP

Let's hope to hell we don't have to benefit from Abbott/Hockey's economic brilliance for a moment longer than legally required. We probably couldn't survive another term of that level of genius and could do with another term of Labor economic mismanagement to return to growth and intelligent budgeting....

Beoz

As you said, 10 years is probably a better indicator. Might be best to let the last 10 years speak for itself.

GarryP

I did.