First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

This is the follow on from my other post Our journey to Perth and Perth Airport.

OK I know it is long winded and a bit disjointed but it is meant to help those seeking information about the early stages of arrival etc.

We got picked up at Perth airport on the Thursday by my hubby’s boss, he took us to our serviced accommodation in Subiaco. His big tip was when you buy a car get one with CRUISE CONTROL – he said it would save us getting fines, as they are very strict with speed limits here. He picked us up with a Ford Falcon Station wagon. There was plenty room for our luggage which consisted of 3 large suitcases, 2 smaller suitcases, 2 hand luggage suitcases, laptop bag, hand luggage backpack. We had brought with us: booster seat for 4.5yr old and seatbelt clip. For 2.5yr old we had booster seat with back bit that clips into it. (we have since bought a second hand car seat for him for $45 at The Baby Store in Bedford babystore.com.au. You can pick up 0-4 yr old seat for around $100-120 second hand. The one we bought was just for toddlers. The basic rule is a child needs to be 14kg or above to sit on just a booster seat.

We had a gift basket filled with goodies waiting for us at our serviced apartment and the fridge had been filled and there was bread and cereals. And there was a little koala and kangaroo for boys, a Gregory’s (street directory) and an information book called Living in Perth Australia 2006/7 a reference guide for migrants and residents. This was all the thoughtful doing of the recruitment company. I was really grateful, as I was shattered as I hadn’t slept for 24hrs. Hubby bathed kids and I made scrambled eggs on toast. We had dinner and all went to bed at about 6pm. The kids woke up at midnight and wouldn’t go back to sleep for about an hour - they then slept til 9am. We were all a bit out of it the next day – we felt a bit disorientated. We didn’t suffer any further jet lag – but we did sleep a lot during the first week as we had survived on only about 5 hours sleep a night during the last week in the UK as there was so much to do before going.

The relocation agent came by at 11am to ask us where we’d like to her to look for fully furnished accommodation for 3 months for us. She said most of it is nearer to Perth city. eg West Perth, Subiaco, East Perth, South Perth, Como

We said we wanted something around $350 per week and a bit more north. She said she would battle to find something in that price range and that it would most probably be $380 per week. Monday we went to look at 3 places in Trigg/Scarborough. They were all around $320 per week. We chose one in Trigg – it has 2 bedrooms and a little garden outside.

Our first day we went to buy sim cards for our mobiles at the Post Office. $25 each and they have $25 of calls on them already. We decided to go for Telstra as the coverage is good. eg We could get signal in Ellenbrook whereas our friends couldn’t on there mobile, which was another operator.

We phoned around to enquire about car hire but in the end hubby’s company let us use one of their company cars for a week while we looked into buying a car.
Watch out as some car hire companies advertise a really cheap rate but then you have to pay extra for insurance or the kilometres are limited to 100 per day.

We looked for second hand cars in the Quokka – it is a newspaper that comes out on a Thursday. We bought a 1997 Ford Falcon station wagon – duel fuel, 215000km on the clock. $4900. We using LPG gas and it cost less than our Astra did in the UK to run. It took me a while to understand this 4L engine and automatic car thing – but now I understand that having a big engine means your car doesn’t have to work that hard on the road and that is why they can do such big mileage. We spend as little as possible on a car as we wanted to free up as much cash as we could for the deposit on our house.

On the first Saturday a friend picked us up and we stopped off at City Beach – wow it is really lovely there.

Then we stopped off at Hillary’s Harbour – they have a lovely beach area, which is great for little children as the water is shallow so it is quite safe for them to run around. Another great place for little kids is Ivey Watson Playground or Stickybeaks – it is for under 5s. It is at the top of Kings Park. And we’ve discovered Hungry Jacks (like MacDonalds but we think it’s a bit better) they have a climbing frame/jungle gym thing with slides at most of them so it is great for the kids. There are playgrounds everywhere and they are really nice. The facilities for children here are great.

We decided to open bank account with HSBC – the only branch is in the city centre in St Georges Terrace.

We put in an offer on a 3 bed house but someone put in a higher offer. The next day we put in an offer on a 4 bed house that needs a lot of renovation done to it – the offer was accepted subject to finance and FIRB approval. So far we have got our mortgage approved in principal and we’re hoping to hear soon about FIRB approval – we did the application online as we heard it normally comes through a lot quicker. All going well we’ll move into our house at the end of August.

These are the positives for having gone the 457 work sponsored visa route:
- had our stuff professionally packed and shipped – paid for by company
- had someone greet and pick us up from airport
- stayed 2 weeks in serviced accommodation – paid for by company
- relocation agent organised fully furnished accommodation
- visa evidencing was sorted out by companies immigration agents
- no job hunting on arrival

As we have 2 toddlers it has been very stressful but having had all the extra help has made it a lot more bearable.

Negatives or just points to ponder:

- We are not entitled to the $7000 first time home buyers grant (I read on here a while back that someone said if you got your permanent residence within a year of buying your house that you could claim it. This is no longer the case – I have verified this with a few real estate agents.
- require FIRB approval when buying a house – It can mean you can loose out on a house if someone has another buyer that doesn’t requite approval. (I phoned up about a house for sale to find out if it was still available the agent said that 125 people had come to view it and that it was on the market for 450k – someone had put in an offer of 500k but they required FIRB approval so their offer was turned down, another person put in an offer of 490k and it was accepted.

With regards to real estate agencies – some are better than others and I guess it depends on the actual agent you deal with as well. We had really good service from Julie at Remax in Woodvale and Carla from Keenen First National in Woodvale. They were the only agents who didn’t just take our details down but organised for us to see some houses. We asked all the agents to recommend mortgage brokers and we spoke to 3 before deciding on who to go through to find us a good mortgage deal. We were also pleasantly surprised that we could borrow a fair bit more than what we originally thought.

Tips that I got from others in this forum:
- Get twin dvd player for kids to watch dvds in car while you are driving around looking for houses etc.
- Bring mulitplug extension so that you only have to change one plug and then you can plug in a few UK plugs onto it.
- Get mobiles unlocked before coming over – we used the free nokia unlock website.
- When you draw cash at the ATM you need to select CREDIT for your debit card not cheque. My hubby did this and his card got rejected a couple times then I said I remembered reading on here that you must select CREDIT account.

Some tips from us:
-Bring reins for toddlers for airports – you know when you’ve folded up your pram as it has to go through x-ray machine – toddlers want to run so reins would have been good. Also when you have your stop over – in case you don’t get your stroller like it happened to us. Then at least you can have a bit of control. We ended up a with toddler running off and getting grazes on the travellators.
-Bring first aid kit – we used antiseptic cream and plasters for grazes from travellator accident.
- buy car with LPG conversion
- buy car with cruise control
- if you know the area you will be staying in initially research your local amenities. eg Medicare office, banks, etc
- Medicare is under Health Insurance Commission in the Yellow pages
- When you buy a car you need to send forms off to the DPI – Department of Planning and Infrastructure – also they are whom you get your Australian Drivers Licence from.
- phone up all your banks to let them know you will be in Australia so that they do not block your debit or credit card when you start making foreign transactions. Also write down the international number to phone them from Oz as you wont be able to phone the 087 or 0845 number from Oz.

If you want to buy second hand clothes and furniture etc
There are lots of charity shops about – they fall under recycled clothing in the yellow pages. Garage sales are advertised in the Quokka and in the Sunday Times.

Investigate as much as you can from the UK through using the internet. I’m glad I did as it has made some things a lot easier when we got here. We were very frustrated with not having internet for the first 2 weeks and now we’re only on dial-up which we’ll use for emailing mainly as we’ll reach our download limit quickly if we ending up surfing the net.

Good luck everyone with whatever stage you're at.

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

Glad everything is working out so smoothly for you all :) . We've come on practically the same route as you except we haven't bought a house yet and have found that everything has gone well too. :cool: Is your house in Woodvale?
Best of luck that things continue to work out well for you.
Tracey

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

Glad that everything is working out for you. It sounds as though you are settling in quite well. Its lovely to hear how you are getting on.

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

Hi can I just ask what FIRB is?
Thanks
Michelle

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

Wow Luma ... for only a few weeks in, you've got so much accomplished. So glad you're getting well settled.

Thanks for letting us all know.

x

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

Great to hear you're getting on so well. You've certainly had a busy time of it.

Some really useful info there, thanks.

Gill

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

What visa are you here on? We are permanent residents and got the $7000 in March.

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

Hungry Jacks is Burger King.

PS Welcome to Perth :D

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

Luma

Thanks for a great post, especially as we are heading out shortly.

Just wanted to ask who you used for your shipping, as my new company in Oz has said they will contribute, so if you can receommend the ones you used that would be great.

Thanks in advance,

Blue toffee

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

Good post Luma,
Thanks, good luck with everything xx

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

-
Good luck everyone with whatever stage you're at.[/QUOTE]

Excellent informative and useful posting, cheers.

Enjoy Perth !!

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

-
Good luck everyone with whatever stage you're at.[/QUOTE]

Excellent informative and useful posting, cheers.

Enjoy Perth !!

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

We're on a 4 year 457 visa.
If you are not on a permanent visa you require FIRB approval
www.firb.gov.au

We used GB Liners in the UK and Kent in Perth for shipping. Our container should arrive in Fremantle on 12th July - it left on 16th June. Then it will be interesting to see how long it takes to clear customs and whether we cleaned everything well enough?!!

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

glad to hear you are settling in well Luma. Good luck! :D

Re: First couple weeks settling into Perth
 

Nice one. Good deal on the car - I agree - dual fuel and a big engine are not a bad idea, you also drive at fairly economical speeds especially outside rushhour or the city. Our Falcon has only done 100k and is a perfect candidate for conversion. It's a tad thirsty for short trips but comes in to its own on a run and when we need space and comfort.

Is this CREDIT thing when you use your *UK* debit card, if so is that the 'VISA/Mastercard' thing going on? I haven't heard it for an Aussie debit card.