Zara_may

Dear all,
We are a young couple in early 30s with a 4yr old daughter. We live in london(suburbs) at the moment. My husband and I both work in the Banking industry as business analysts. I am a freelancer and i make about £120k a year (senior IT business analyst - banking). My husband is a perm employee and he makes £60k.

I am not very sure how much IT BA's get paid in Sydney. Assuming we both get paid $90k (loosely based on payscale.com) we will have a disposable income of about $10k a month between us. In London, we have now £6k per month between us PLUS £40k(pre tax) a year that is left in my company as retained profits. (my husband is planning to take freelancing route next yr. so appx another 40k in the company's profits)

I am not sure if tht £40k is worth letting go for the lifestyle we can get in Australia. We have about £100k in savings to buy a house. But all we get for £300k in London suburbs is a 80yr old shoebox with neighbours houses attached on both sides, very poor insulation and in need of repairs. What appeals to both of us about Canada/Australia is the spacious houses. We've given up on Canada due to the immigration route being closed and weather.

If we apply for PR now, we won't be able to move until July 2015. Our financial situation will be much better then and we will hopefully be able to afford a nice house here in London as well.

So the question is, is it worth going through the hassle of applying, taking financial hit and moving?

What we are after is - affordable housing, slower pace of life, decent pay.

What are opportunities like in NZ for finance IT skills?

Almo

I don't think you can make an informed decision until you define exactly what kind of lifestyle you are seeking, and whether it is in fact available in Australia. You may have already done so, of course. What exactly is it that you expect to gain, in terms of lifestyle, by moving to Australia?

Housing is far from affordable in the desirable suburbs of major Australian cities. At current exchange rates, GBP300k = $450k-ish. That won't buy you much. Don't get me wrong, it'll buy you something in a number of Melbourne suburbs (don't know about other cities so much) but it won't be anything fancy and it definitely won't be a 'desirable' suburb.

If you're right about the salaries you could earn in Australia then you would be subtantially better off financially in the UK. The salaries you've quoted do sound quite low for Australia though, just on the basis of what you're earning in London, but I'm not in IT so might be way off the mark.

Depends on what you're looking for. I wouldn't move now for financial reasons and whether or not you'll have a better lifestyle is really subjective. I'd move for the hell of it, for an adventure, to live somewhere different, but appreciate you have a kid to think about.

I don't know much about visas as I had a kiwi passport to get me in, but if you are eligible to apply for PR now, as your post suggests, you might as well, you can always reassess once you have your PR and having choices is never a bad thing.

quoll

Heck no - doesnt look like much is broke to me on those figures. With that sort of security you can afford to take those nice longer holidays that you get in UK and sample the world. What does this mythical "better lifestyle" look like for you? Perhaps you would get more bang for your buck if you looked at moving out of London and commuting, even if you have to venture to one end or the other of the Central Line. Sydney and Melbourne arent going to give you nice affordable housing in areas you would want to live in!

Zara_may

Thanks for your inputs Quoll and Almo

To clarify, better lifestyle means the following for us

1. A large house - min 1800 sft in a nice area with good schools
2. Good job scene
3. Long term security - stable economy

The kind of house we are happy with costs £400-425k in London suburbs. The job scene is ok for now. But the whole recession and Eurozone instability is worrying me. We can stretch to afford that sort of house here, but I'm scared house prices will fall to the ground wiping out our deposit money....

Almo

Hmm. Look, I love Melbourne, I am very homesick for Melbourne right now - I am back in the UK - so it's not that I'm an Australia-hater, but if housing is a real factor for you I would start looking online at what $450k will buy you in Melbourne/Sydney. Maybe come back and do a search for the kind of suburbs you find, see what the feedback is.

Zara_may

Sure Almo, will do that. Are you familiar with London?

What suburbs Melbourne/Sydney compare to Bromley area in London?

Like good school, family area, commutable to the city center etc

Almo

Not familiar enough to give you a comparison I'm afraid, I was a North London girl, and even then not for long! Others will be able to give you better info on that but until they show up you might want to give some further info about how long you'd be willing to commute for (15/30/45/60 mins?), what kind of schooling you'd be looking for (state/catholic/private).

Lots to research, for sure. At least you have plenty of time to get things figured out.

Buzzy--Bee

We moved from London to Melbourne, but when the pound was worth $2.50. So we could easily trade a semi in the London suburbs for a very good house here. These days the same trade would get you a very average house in a very average area.

Your deposit of 100,000 pounds plus the mortgage you could get on 2 x $90k would equal a spend of somewhere over $600k. Where I live, which is a good area 25ks from the CBD and close to the beach, that would buy you either an old shitty run down 3 bed wooden house on a good sized piece of land or a modern 3 bed townhouse with almost no garden.

If property is the main driver for your move, I would probably recommend you stay in the UK.

By the way, you mention NZ for some reason. In NZ professional level jobs are much harder to come by and lower paid than in Aus or UK.

BB

Sandyh

Hi! We're currently in Beckenham, Bromley and we're moving out to Sydney next Jan. We have decided to rent our house out here and rent in Sydney. We have 2 children and our drive is them. We are moving for a better quality of life , as well as my husband's job opportunity over there. I am giving up my teaching career here to stay at home with the kids, something I miss doing here. Sydney is incredibly expensive. My OH' s new salary is in excess of $200,000 so we are really fortunate. If you are right about your comparative salaries and you are happy to send your child to public school in Sydney, then look into the northern suburbs, like us where you can get a little more than north shore or CBD, And you should be able to rent. Buying is even out of our reach!

Buzzy--Bee

Bear in mind that $100,000 will buy you around the same as 40,000 pounds when doing your calculations.

BB

isgraham

If you fancy the adventure of living in Stdney then go for it. If you want a house then stay in London you are in real terms better off in my experience now than you will be in Sydney on the salaries you will get you will get a big house a long commute from the city or a flat near the city. From what I'm hearing from my mates over in Sydney quite a lot of financials are sacking IT staff at the moment. Macquarie are getting rid of their research IT team E*Trade Australia have recently gotten rid of quite a few as have Perpetual. For all the bad news in the UK I'd rather take my chances here in London as there are just more opportunities and potential employers.

sr71

My gut feel is that you would be better off staying in London, maybe you have some utopian idea about Australia but in reality very few things are better here.

Have you thought about moving out of London? Quite often you can get some pretty spacious places that are commutable by fast train and have good schools. We did that and moved to Hove and the lifestyle was just fantastic in comparison to London (although some won't like the commute but generally it was an hour each way into London Bridge, but loads of places within 20-30 mins commute)

Certainly a lot less risky and cheaper to try that for 12 months prior to moving across the world.

You will not get a spacious family home in Melbourne or Sydney that is in a good school zone for under $800k these days, usually more. However personally I think it's almost better to live in a cheaper area and send your kids to private schools.

Saxy

You should come to Oz. & take a good look at the place for yourselves.
Don't believe all that you hear about Australia being the best place to live in the world (they love telling themselves that!).
As for the financial safety, I honestly believe that it is going to take a dive, because of the involvement with Asia (cheap imports, slow exports).
That's just my observation on the subject, after a second 10 week inspection trip.
I said in another post, that my descriptive words for the country are....
"Vulgar and Boring" It's Sport, Sport, and more Sport, that's all it appears to have going for it.
Forget 'Wanted Down Under', come and see for yourselves!!
We're back to Espania tomorrow, YIPEE!!!
We will be back next year thoufg, to see the family.

Amazulu

The only way to find out is to have a look for yourself. Opinions are like assholes on this topic I'm afraid and mean f**k all.

Good luck.

Dorothy

So you've been for a few weeks' holiday and decided that all fo Australia is "vulgar and boring"?

Jeez...I went to Hounslow West a couple of years ago. I found all of England to be absolutely shit, full of airports and traffic. And all they do is shoot rifles and sports - what with the gun club right there and the open space football field.