lucyb

Me again....

I have SOOO many questions and you are all really helpful!
I see someone posted about buying a house from the UK as they base it on your current UK salaries. As wages seem lower in OZ, this does sound a good idea...any feedback or advice you can give re this? We have to invest $100000 to get the 5 extra points though...could be logistical nightmare. Has anyone of you done this?

Thanks everyone

Lucy

darkless

Hi Lucy

Not sure if you are referring to me or not, but we bought a house in OZ based on UK wages simply because a) it enabled us to remain on the market without waiting over 2 years ( we sold out house based on a sept 03 valuation recently and and are moving in Jan 05). In the UK my partner is a teacher and I work in a university and if I am being honest, we are not paid that well. Therefore if we can get a mortgage based on these fairly low wages in the UK, it should all be fine in OZ. Our mortgage is $1100, which if we rented would be about $270 per week - very similar to what we would probably pay in rent - and that is just lost money

Cheers
Dave (& Helen)

Bed Of Roses

Hello Guys,

I looked into this sometime ago but i could not find a lender willing to do this. I obviously didnt look that hard .
Do you mind me asking what the name of the lender was?
regards BOR..

darkless

Hi BOR

Where are you planning to go in OZ - if in the Perth area, I can give you the name of our mortgage advisor - he was great.

We are with Home Building Society. Generally it seems that so long as you have a 20% deposit and can demonstrate your wages etc then you are fine.

Dave

JAJ

Most Australian lenders are reluctant to lend to people who are outside Australia and have no credit record here.

Are you suggesting buying a house before actually moving?
People have lost lots of money doing that. It's often advisable to move, settle down, get to know both the city and where you are likely to be working, before committing to a house purchase.

Jeremy

T&P

Hi there!

I was in Australia in Feb with my husband. We were there for 3 weeks and in that time we found a house we loved we then visited St George Bank and got pre approval for the mortgage.

Got back to UK, contracts exchanged/mortgage came through and we settled.

The Bank had no probs with us living overseas. We had a 30% deposit so this obviously helped. The Bank were really helpful and there were no problems at all.

This was all before I had even applied for my visa!!! (still haven't actually - better get a move on as want to be out there in October - gulp!!)

Just to let you know it can be done!!!

OH and about credit history etc..... Hubbie and I don't have one as we haven't got credit/store cards and have never bought anything on hp or had loans etc....... Was a bit worried about this but it wasn't an issue!!!

Good luck.

T

ABCDiamond

Not sure if this bit of info will help, but here goes..

If you have to have the $100,000 invested, and that leaves you short for a deposit on a house, you MAY be able to borrow against that $100,000, in addition to other borrowings, by allowing the lender to hold that investment as security.

It is worth asking
Some lenders will do that. I discussed something very similar with the HSBC mobile lender out here in Brisbane.

owieb

Another thing worth remembering is that if you haven't got your permanent visa, you have to get FIRB approval. Checkout www.firb.gov.au .

Here is a brief summary of what the FIRB approval is about. http://www.firb.gov.au/content/Publi...ing_a_Home.pdf you will notice that you are also restricted to the type of properties that you can buy. Other restrictions are that for second-hand dwellings you have to live in it as your main residence, something that you couldn't do if you were still living in the UK.

It's probably best to make sure you get your permanent visa before buying a property.