Thanks, thats useful but it looks like CGT only applies if you buy in Australia before selling in the UK, i.e. can you be resident and renting in Australia (for tax purposes) but have your primary residence in the UK? Sorry to prattle on, I'lll get prof advice on all matters re: money transfer...

Hello All,
We know exactly how you feel..... we had to drop the house price by 20K, gutting at the time, but we had an offer on Saturday, of which we accepted!!! So we will be over to start our new life in June! Staying with my Mum before. The reality is setting in though, the new owners want to be in in 6 weeks, so the packing and sorting has begun, big time! As well as both working full time and two young boys...... but at least we haven't much time to panic!!!!

Good luck to everyone, hang in there!!!
Katie and Paul

Excellent news! Good luck.

Not jealous at all...no sirreee.

I am looking to buy in the UK having lived in OZ for 3 years. The problem i face is that some people are not prepared to drop in price at all. I have offered on 3 houses (all said no) as they can't afford to drop a penny. But to buy a house that isn't worth what they are asking (because they owe more than what they paid for it) is no good to us as we could end up in negative equity too with it.
It is a vicious circle.

It seems to me that the recent uptick in the UK property market has been confined to London and the South East. I know a couple of local estate agents very well and they tell me a lot of deals over the last year have been from cash buyers (and I'm not talking about bankers). Ordinary people with a bit of money in the bank have been buying houses (rather than flats) for cash - their thinking seems to be that they're earning little interest in the bank and houses always go up.

Where is the UK economy going next? The Bank of England has printed and spent nearly 200 billion - with the admitted intention of maintaining asset (house) prices. The government/BOE has been desperate to avoid a house price crash before the election - hence interest rates at half a percent. Their strategy of making it pointless to keep money in the bank and of printing money to support asset prices has worked. House prices seem to have stabilised. But, all they have done is put off the day of reckoning until after the election.

If, at any point, investors decide UK government debt is risky, they will demand a higher risk premium. In simple terms this means there is the potential at any time for interest rates to be moved upwards sharply. For all of you waiting to leave this dump, this will be great news - in one way - because sterling will recover some of its recent falls against the Australian dollar. The flip side is WHEN (not if) interest rates rise, the UK property market may well crash. When this government's insane spending practices come to an end, the recession will deepen. We've had 10 years of growth between 1997 and 2007 caused by a massive growth in consumer spending fuelled by debt. It led, inevitably, to a credit crunch.
Since then the government has taken over the borrowing. Sooner or later the government will have to stop borrowing. Interest on the debt will become unmanageable if they continue. When the government stop borrowing, the economy will decline again.

All in all, it's not a rosy picture. If I were moving to Australia at the moment, I'd sell up for whatever I could get, keep a chunk of the money in Sterling (it will go back up again) and rent in Australia. House prices in Australia are ludicrous and must fall in time.

In a sense (at least for those of us trying to "gap it") thanks to "New" Labour's quantitive easing, we are suffering house price devaluation by stealth. Then again, without quantitive easing the house prices would have crashed. We're buggered whichever way we look at it .

SinkingShip's sound analysis of the situtation makes me wonder whether I should be putting the house on the market now to avoid falling foul of a double-whammy loss.

As Bart Simpson once said "Well, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't"

Ours is going on the market before April.

Yep, its tough alright. Re-training takes time i'm afraid and my money won't last as long as it would take to re-train.

Been in oz 27 months now

Jazzys

Thinking of putting it on the market immediately after validation. If it sells and we have to move out before the end of the year maybe I could send the wife and kids as an advance party . It might be a good plan and help ensure that we have at least one income for every step of the way.

What he said!

Ok so I am hoping that:-

1. House prices in the South East will climb rapidly from Spring onward.
2. We manage to sell ours for a huge profit.
3. Sterling rises back to what it should be e.g. £1 = $2.3x.
4. House prices in Oz plunge by 20 -30 percent while all the above happens.
5. We can buy a MacMansion in Oz for peanuts and have enough left over for a yacht.

Sounds good to me.

Sound good to me too, ALfresco.
We're basically stuffed as I get a chunk of my horrendously expensive childcare paid by tax credits. So if we sell then we won't recieve any help as our equity will count as savings and I assume likewise when we get to Oz. So we're going to sell (hopefully) and buy in the UK a smaller more sellable/rentable property.
That'll give us smaller mortgage - so we can pay off debt and save a little and ultimately have somewhere that's easier to let out whilst we get settled in Oz. Then we'll sell it when we're ready to buy over there.
Complicated plan I think!!!

btw we're not validating til november so we've got some time.

I hope it works out for you Lyx (and you Alfresco) . We seem to all be devising complicated ways to get over to Oz ASAP but without losing heaps of dosh in the process. Sometimes I wish if I had nothing to lose

Yes, they look at the value of the property (in Australian dollars) when you emigrate compared to when you sell.

But it's funny how everyone is talking about gains when losses are just as likely if not more, ... if 6 months later you sell the house for GBP90,000 and the exchange rate is 1.50, then your sale revenue is AUD135,000 and you have made a capital loss not a capital gain. In some cases the resulting loss can offset other gains.

why post it then thats the sort of help we dont need.