boom_meringue

Background, 2005-15 in Perth, got citizenship Aussie day 2008, we've all got passports.

We've been back 3 years now, ended up buying in rural Gloucestershire to be close to where I was working at the time and we are feeling utterly isolated. Long story short, the plan is to move back to Perth. We were in the northern burbs, 5 yrs Joondalup and 5 yrs Hocking,the plan will be to move SoR to get more for our money when we come back.

For anyone who has done the come, go then return thing, what are the gotchas?

carcajou

Spouseofscouse most recently who I'm sure will be along shortly.

I would just say, think carefully about your location; I am not a big fan of south of river once you get beyond places like Como or Applecross.

spouse of scouse

Hi boom meringue (and carcajou )

My situation's a little different - I'm an Aussie, husband's a dual Brit/Aussie. He'd been in Australia for 25 years and had always planned to go back to the UK when he retired. We did that in 2015, but my husband couldn't settle so we returned to Australia in August 2018.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that property prices had fallen in the 3 years we were away, so selling our home in a 2015 seller's market and buying in a 2018 buyer's market was a financial boost.

Do you have a look at realestate.com.au regularly? You might be surprised at what you can afford north of the river, if that's where you'd rather be, although I've noticed prices creeping up during the time we've been back. I see you lived in Perth for 10 years so am assuming you're pretty familiar with areas both north and south of the river?

No huge 'gotchas' for us - in fact the most hassle we had was getting a telephone line, and that was a HUGE hassle. Newly built house, an absolute nightmare of a run-around from Telstra - took 4 months in the end, prior to which it was freeview telly and mobile wireless internet.

We were advised by our removalists that our shipping container would take 4 - 6 weeks to arrive, it took 12 weeks so that was a pain in the proverbial.

So really, it's just the same process as always applies setting up life in a new country - sort out housing, transport,tax, electoral roll, bank, Medicare, driver's licence, phone, internet. Schools and child care if applicable.

Happy to answer any specific questions you have if I can.

quoll

BFrost

Perth city is located on the Swan River and overlooks the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean, so water is the heart and soul of this city.
Pros:

• The weather is great
• The airport’s easy to get to
• It’s surrounded by awesome beaches
• The scenery is beautiful

Cons:

• It’s expensive
• It’s one of the most isolated cities in the world

spouse of scouse

If you read the opening post, the OP lived in Perth for 10 years. Not sure why all your posts seem to consist of cut and pastes from websites, and don't address the questions being asked

carcajou

I guess one question would be - why did you leave? If you left because of dissatisfaction with something (job, city, etc) - what has been done to rectify or change that, so another "ping" or "pong" isn't in the offing a few years from now?

the troubadour

Above post expresses it elegantly enough. Do look into the reasons to left WA after ten years, plus the desire to leave England after only three. You'll know moving continents is a mighty expensive business to undertake.

To my mind the northern suburbs you mentioned are somewhat remote. (lol) Just where in the southern suburbs would you reside? As mentioned the strip along the river to Freo is fine, (lived close to three years in Applecross) but inland certainly wouldn't be a consideration of mine. Very pricey to break into that area though.Each to their own of course.

House prices are supposed to be falling. I don't really notice too much difference around my area, but I believe different further out. You should check out prices in areas of interest. Even rent for a time. Check out if the area really suits. Real estate generally is in decline Australia wide, but more so in the bigger cities for now.

WA has had it somewhat hard since you left in 15. They attempt to talk up the market, but yet to spot the 'green shoots' the media likes to put a positive spin on, when talking economy. Saying that though,the city area has improved over your absence with the competition of various infrastructure.

Amazulu

Never done the ping pong thing but just wanted to add that after some very lean years, the economy in WA is improving in leaps and bounds - 2019 is going to be a good year. I work in mining project engineering, so see whats coming up and we are expecting the next 3-4 years to be good - there is a shit ton of projects coming online. If mining construction is doing well, the whole economy will do well too.

Good luck.

the troubadour

The last thing WA wants is another mining 'boom'. It inflates the economy and raises prices in most other sectors, even those with nothing to do with mining. The WA economy at the moment is not in good shape. Saying that the loss of population has slowed and migration has increased, but well down on boom time levels in 2012 and 13.(rentals have declined a bit but still plenty around) Qatar Airlines recently cancelled flights out of Perth and the Dubai flagged airline is reducing its daily two services from two to one. Folk not spending anything like before. Good thing more deals about.

What we need is some stability to our economy, which doesn't appear to be on the horizon.

Amazulu

There's no such thing as a mining boom (it's a media/political construct). We get a mining construction phase which consumes large amounts of labour, resources and capital, followed by a mining production phase which doesn't. Dutch disease (look up the meaning), aka two-speed economy, economic imbalance etc cannot be stopped and is inevitable in a free market economy - capital and labour will flow to the parts of the economy where they will get the highest return. You could try and control it with some kind of big brother socialist mumbo jumbo but it would ultimately fail. What will happen will happen. What can be done though is for government to properly manage the inevitable increase in income that they will receive - something that has not really happened in Western Australia and Australia as a whole. Successive governments have been guilty of this - Barnett, Carpenter, Gallop, Howard, Rudd, Gillard etc. It can easily be seen that the only resource rich country to successfully mange this has been Norway, all the others - UK, US, Canada, Australia etc have not. Lessons have not been learnt but unfortunately, we (as in all those other countries) are caught up in election cycles that do not consider the future

Personally, I'm looking forward to the next few years. It's time for the big candy again - it's been too long on povo wages. I'm now on the right side of the supply/demand equation, so it's all aboard the gravy train - choo, choo!

the troubadour

Not managed the economy well during past booms , would be an understatement. Last ALP that attempted to rectify got a thrashing from miners, who made an example off, and fear of God put on any future challenges that miners should pay a fair tax. Lib's as usual cheered on the low return on state assets.

Good on the present ALP WA government naming and shaming BHP into coughing up (potentially) a share of avoided taxes. It looks like an agreement will be made behind closed doors, for a per cent of the amount owing, to save bad publicity. No Norway here where government ensured a viable return from corporates, then wisely invested for benefit of the nation.

Obviously vested interests, those set to gain will welcome a return to 'inflated' so called 'boom' conditions, but most do not work in mining and casino economics do little for the majority of the population. We remain overly expensive in most everything as a state firstly, and a country as a whole. Past resource boom opened the gates wide to greed and price gorging, something we, especially in The West, have yet to recover from. This remains a very expensive place to do business in, for tourists, for entertainment, for house purchase.

What is needed, is steady and sustainable growth, but afraid WA has always been the boom bust type scenario. Reading the cards suggests little is about to change in the future.

dave99

The biggest gotcha, is that you might not feel like you will settle back in Australia either.
You might forever feel you don't belong in England and you don't belong in Australia.
I think this is common for many of us that have ping ponged. You miss the family and friends back in the UK, the convenience of things, but then if you are in the UK you miss the money, weather, ease of life in Australia.

I wonder if we are all doomed to be stuck in a limbo of not belonging anywhere.

boom_meringue

Some great answers, thanks, and some nonsense too. This place doesn't change much, does it?

We left to give our daughter the opportunity to know her grand parents and to have some family support. We found we didn't get the family support we expected and ended up with only 1 out of 4 grandparents alive and in the UK, we don't have any reason to stay. There were some other things that fed into the decision but those things have changed now.


This is definitely something we are worried about but I think the UK has become increasingly xenophobic while we have been away and we just don't like the lifestyle.

I work in IT, delivering organisational change and digital transformation projects. It would be good if we got back to Perth during the construction phase, as this is always a good time for project professionals.

We would end up a reasonable distance from the CBD, given our budget and desire for a decent size house, close to the beach and easily commutable to the city where all he work is. Current thought is safety bay/rocko/warnbro, given the prices, beach and close to down south. We also have friends down south, so would be fairly well set up.

Amazulu

Again, the distortions caused by our mining construction phase followed by a production phase are inevitable and cannot be avoided. All we need is for government to think about and spend the inevitable fiscal boost wisely - and as Norway is the only country to have achieved this, I'm not holding my breath. These distortions generally benefit everyone, but admittedly, for a tiny minority, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Them's the breaks

A mining tax has genuine merit, but K Rudd's version - made up on the fly and without consultation - was pathetic and a joke. It's unfair to ask companies to invest many billions in mining projects (as they were at the time) in a known risk environment and then go and change these terms at the drop of a hat - that's the kind of shit that the Congo would do, not a 1st world, western country, but then it was a socialist government we had then and as they generally don't have a clue, kind of expected. If we do go for a real mining tax, income tax should be cut to make it revenue neutral - let our resources carry more of the burden rather than our people. That rock lobster loving idiot, McGowan has claimed that BHP owe $300m in unpaid royalties but that doesn't mean he's right. He usually talks a lot of shit, and this could just be another example of this. We'll see