My god these exchange rates are frightening at the minute
I was hoping to buy a house soon with my limited deposit from UK but at 2 to 1 I dont want to send any cash over.
I had the chance to exchange back in august at 2.58 to pound I didnt do it because I didnt have my visa
Geez I wish I had now
Isnt heindseite a great thing

Yup....A$ raced ahead on Friday. I'm wondering if we'll see $1.99 this week???

Amen to that brother... we are in the same boat... titanic

So you're saying that in August last year it was $2.58 to £? It was $2.41 back in July 2004, when I was on a WHV. So to go from $2.41 to £2.58 in 3 1/2-4 years and then $2.58 to $2.11 in the space of 9 months is sodding scary!

I'm no financial expert but can anyone tell what happened here? Did the pound get weaker and/or Aussie Dollar stronger?

Does anyone know if things will improve? I'm off in December to Aussie hopefully for good but yeah like chrisandvee has stated how much money are we losing here?!

With our UK newspapers warning brits to expect another recession I'd say things aren't gonna improve anytime soon!

Think most of you Aussie expat posters will be just fine (unless you're deriving income still from the UK) ha! For us 'wannabe' expats its much more frustrating!

I was reading pound is buying 2.04 now, on yahoo, I assume its correct , aussie sharmarket back over the 6000 too, waiting for our little sunbeam Rudd to take the credit soon

Actually the rate at close on Friday was $2.0474!!

Bit of both, the pound got weaker and the A$ also got much stronger. The pound is still very strong against the US dollar. Back in the day when you got A$3 to a pound, you only got about US$0.48 to an A$. Now that's US$0.96.

So if the pound had fallen that much relatively you'd be looking at only A$1.50 to a pound.

Time for all us wannabe's who are leaving soon to start panic buying the aussie $?

I'm no expert but have been watching this myself & discussing it this very morning with my folks who live in Perth & are having a nightmare with their finances!

My understanding is ...

It's interest rates, Oz commenced raising interest rates & have continued to do so to try & cool the housing market. Here in the UK our central bank was doing the same but since we hit the "credit crunch" have been cutting interest rates like crazy to try & improve liquidity in the banking system & stop us tipping "into recession" - this is despite inflation going up with comments this week from the govenor of 3.7% by the end of the year.

Outlook is we will not start raising interest rates to curb inflation, although a brake may have been put on the cuts for now. No cuts forecasted in Oz for the time being.

Hence the AUD$ being stronger than the £.

Whether Oz can avoid the "worldwide" slowdown & avoid needing to cut interest rates to stimulate domestic demand - who knows?

Seems the interest rate differential is 90% the cause of it
Australia when it starts a lower rates rather than hike them things may
get back to normal
Devil and the deep blue sea the devil being the uk and the deep blue
sea being Sydneys beautiful coastline Anyway if you can ? wait 18 months
i der say we will be back to an average 2.42 But if you cant i dont think
it will change this side of xmas 09 Flog the house if you can, stick equity in high
interest account in Australia and get on with your life as its the same as uk in
auss
everyones sitting on the fence watching property market

The interest rates here in Oz rose because of inflation. The level of inflation was above what the RBA wanted. Despite some speculation that it may increase again, it is unlikely (although I am no financial specialist). The cost of living here has increased dramatically causing the inflation rise. This has a direct effect on exchange rates. It is unlikely we will see a return to £1 to $2.50 for some time. Australia doesn't seem to be hit as hard by the Sub Prime credit problems as other countries, it also has a booming economy.

The inflation you are talking about is rising fuel and food costs and these are the same around the world. Fuel and food prices increased in the UK and so they dropped the interest rate!! Go figure.

Mike.

Yes but they are/were concerned about recession.

I seem to recall reading a while ago about the items that make up the Australian consumer spending indices that are used for inflation figures. And surprisingly interest rates figured into this (making it self generating to an extent), can anyone confirm or deny this?

I moved over to Aus a few years back, and the exchange rates held fairly constant. Two years ago however I had to move over to Singapore for work.

Almost the moment I landed here, the Aussie dollar marched north, with the result that the amount of cash I had to transfer back to meet my AU mortgage increased month on month (the Reserve Bank interest rate hikes didnt help here either). Over the course of the 2 years I have been here, 1 SIN$ changed from buying 0.92 AU$ to 0.76$AU

End of the day, there is not a lot you can do about exchange rate fluctuations. If you are coming over to AU for the first time, you are probably looking at a one-off transaction, so bite the bullet and dont try to fret over it.

If you do have plenty of spare cash floating around, and you are still months away from moving, how about looking into an AUD$ account?