thinking about it!

hi, we are thinking about coming over to australia, me my hubby and four young kids, we don't know anything about anything yet!!! the first thing i would like to know is housing, what does everyone else do, do you rent for a while, do you have to have a permanant visa for a morgage? do you have to be in a job for a certain amount of time? anything would be appreciated!!
my husband is a joiner, am i right in thinking we could get in on a skilled visa?
we are thinking of Perth, but have not set anything in stone yet!!
would be great to chat to anyone on the board about anything really!! thanks all, claire jeff and the kids x

ohippy

most people rent a holiday place short term, then a normal rental before buying but everyone's different and it's what suits you best. You don't need a pr for a mortgage but it helps ! We got a mortgage with only a couple of weeks work.

madsad

Hiya,
Too be honest,it will depend on your circumstances mortgage wise,regardless im sure there will be something out there suitable if u want it bad enough.
U maybe able to make it here on a skilled visa,im pretty sure joiners are still on the MODL were when we applied 21/2yrs ago.

We rented for over 11/2 yrs,now settled in an area we feel comfortable in & bought & moved into our own ozzie patch 6wks ago

Best of luck & ask away

Donna.

thinking about it!

now i am all excited as i got my first post!!!
where abouts are you?
what about rental fees/ morgage rates over there
and yes joiners are in demand so they say!

OzTennis

Hello and welcome.

Mortgages are as easy to obtain in Australia as they are in the UK. Just yesterday for example the Abbey announced it was going to start up a new line of mortgages which would enable people to borrow 5 times their gross salary (rather than the normal maximum of 3.5 times). A joint income of a minimum of £60K was required and they attempted to answer criticism of how socially irresponsible their move was for a nation floating in debt that they wouldn't give them every Tom, Dick or Harry!

To get back to your original enquiry, as the others said the normal move is to rent short term and then consider your options from there after having a look at the housing market. There will be no shortage of lenders willing to give you a mortgage though.

OzTennis

madsad

No worries then eh?,

We are in Brissy,3kids,hubby,me & 2 dogs.average rent we paid for 3-5 bedroom house plus pool was $300-$340.(4 rentals) mortgage payments for us now are around $440 a week (no pool ).Sacrifice we had to make,wanted to make,feels like home now havin a brick or two to own
Had the kids settled in same school since week one,our kids settled in really easily,maybe made it easier for us?
Hubby has moved about a bit (mechanical engineer-pumps) but is now happy & settled in his 3rd job since coming here.
I am also working over 20hrs a week,something i never done back home but here i dont really have a choice 1st time in paid employment

Hard work all round but we're happy!!

Donna.

h1tvd

Why not try a reccie?
OH and I are going for a visit in March 07. Seems mad really that we go for the reccie AFTER we applied for the visa - should really have been before we applied. We are just hoping when we visit we will not change our minds and regret having spent so much money applying. :scared:
Tracy x

thinking about it!

[QUOTE=h1tvd]Why not try a reccie?

h1tvd,
excuse me for being a bit numb but whats a reccie? hostel ??????

madsad,
that house you rented sounds fablulous !!! seems like you've really settled, congrats !!!!! to be honest were really struggling about where to go to in aus.we had sort of decided on Perth due to the construction work there but my oh spends up till 2 in the morning reading these forums,the good and the bad!
so we've narrowed it down to perth, adelaide, melbourne, brisbane and sydney !!!
whats brisbane like for construction work and quality of life,the people,crime levels ??? etc etc..
we live in scarborough,north yorkshire. its only a small seaside town but hey what an absolute dump!!! cant wait to get outa here !!

thanks to you both.

p.s whats the weather like at the mo ?? its bloody freezing here!

madsad

[QUOTE=thinking about it!] Believe it or not its raining!!!!warm rain!!! first rain we have had in weeks.

Donna.

thinking about it!

[QUOTE=madsad] donna, any chance ,when you got time, to tell me a bit about brissy ?? did you try any other cities before settling there ??

claire..

madsad

[QUOTE=thinking about it!]
No probs Claire, i will drop you a PM later on as we are going to a party this arvo in the rain!!

madsad

[QUOTE=thinking about it!] Hi Claire,

i'm Malcolm Donna's hubby, to answer your question regarding construction Brisbane is the fastest growing city in Aus and thus construction work is plentiful, a reccie is a trip to see differenet parts of Aus before actually deciding where to stay. Wd never done this as we had friends in Brissy.

Dont have any regrets about not doing a reccie, in for a penny in for a pound i say, but if you have the money a reccie might be a good idea.

Cheers


Malcolm

PS. Your other half will have no trouble getting work as a joiner (carpenter as they call it here) wherever you decide on.

thinking about it!

hi malcolm,

my names jeff,claires husband, how are you ???

thanks for your response regarding the work.this is where the internet gets confusing as i'd seen that perth was the best place for tradesmen.to be honest i 'm not sure if i could deal with the isolation factor that perth is stuck out west and also ,if i can be dumb for a minute,didn't realise just how big aus actually is !!!! so starting to swing our destination east i think.
have been on brisbanecitylife.com and it looks beautiful plus there are other cities nearer than if i were in perth.with 4 kids under 7 years i think a 'reccie' would be too much but will have to see.i think my wife and i will come over about april on our own,hire a car/camper and go from there.

there are a lot of aus forums on here with good and bad intensions i think.the way i see it is. if i go to aus i realise that i have to accustom myself to the lifestyle of the land and from what i seen on here is that in certain cities,especially perth,the british seem to taking over in certain areas which i find a bit wrong to be honest. i dont want to move my family across the world to end up in a community that i have come to get away from !!!! yes its nice to know there are brits you could turn to but for me i want to intergrate with the aussies not brits,let them know im there to work hard and hopefully get some benefit from it and enjoy..

how different is the lifestyle ???? this seems to be one of the main reasons for brits returning.. pace of life,education,crime even down to watching television with the kids. can you get satallite tv ???? sad i know but one thing i would miss would be the footy !!

thanks again to you both. i'm off to bed as its 3.19 AM!!!!!! enjoy your barbie in the rain ! why nis it you would never even dream about doing a BBQ in the rain here

callie.rocky

Hey Claire and Jeff, how's it going?

I'm in South Australia (Adelaide) and moved over here in March 2005. I absolutely love it! I came over as a Police Officer with all the Pommy Cops - you might have read about it in the papers?? However I now have a second job as a mortgage advisor, I worked for Barclays in the UK before I joined the Police. As such I guess I am pretty well placed to answer your question.

Firstly, the most important thing is to be able to prove income - you need to have a job really. There are lenders that will do mortgages without all this but their interest rates are higher than the mainstream lenders. I work with both types of lenders, the lo-doc lenders will only take those who can't get mortgages elsewhere, they have similar lenders in the UK - they are always the ones that you see on the TV.

The next most important thing is 100 points of ID, such as passport, birth certificate, driving licence, etc.

As one of your replies has said, you can get ridiculous amounts of money from the banks now, my job is to make sure you can actually afford your loan and that you get the right loan for you. With the interest rate rises we have had already, plus they are predicting more, I would definitely not recommend borrowing to the hilt.

SA is awesome, you should consider it as a possibility. Perth is nice but it's sooooo far away from everywhere.

If you want to PM me with specific questions then I'm more than happy to help if I can.

My services as a mortgage advisor are completely free to you as I get paid by the banks so I'm not trying to get money from you I can also go interstate if you need.

Good luck and happy hunting,

Callie xxx