Your source?

Ok, then why did you give one of your reasons for fleeing the UK as;

This suggests that in the UK young first time buyers are screwed, yet in OZ they can buy a place. You say that youngsters have to rely on friends and familly here, yet now you say that you will give your kids money in Oz to buy a house???

Very odd statement, you seem to be contradicting yourself and you call me mixed up??

Young house buyers are just as screwed in Oz as in UK.

I dont see the UK Govt giving first home buyers a non-repayable lump sum of money to help them get on the property ladder....

Not much round here for under £200K unless you want a one bedroom flat

PJ

I don't see the UK govt screwing the home buyer for 7% stamp duty on any property over $115k as they do in Victoria. :rolleyes:

Gosh, my parents live 17 miles from Colchester - they have a 4 bed detached house with huge south facing garden and it's now worth $220k (bought in 1976). Can you really only get a 1-bed flat for that much there? :confused:

l agree that buying a house in Sydney and many parts of Melbourne is just as or almost as expensive as the Uk, but if you
look at the house prices in Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and many good quality regional areas close to capital cities, you can buy
a good quality family sized house for $250,000 Australian dollars.
Most people believe these places have a better quality of life then crowded Sydney and Melbourne with almost the same employment opportunities.

LOL are seriuosly saying that Adelaide and Bris can compare to Sydney and Melbourne for employment???

Yes houses are cheaper in those areas. They also offer less choice of work and lower wages. The cheaper houses reflect the lower income of the locals. The same argument could be appilied in the UK. London/Home counties expensive houses/high wages. Northern cities/provincial towns etc lower wages/cheaper houses.

What this suggests is that you do not need to move 12000 miles to find a cheaper house and a higher chance of lower wages or unemployment.

I think you will find that if you had read the original poster's comments properly, they were effectively saying that house prices in Perth and Brisbane, etc were cheaper AND there is generally accepted to be a better standard of living compared to Sydney and Melbourne.

I suspect that most people are aware that wages are less in towns other than Melbourne and Sydney.

In Perth, Brissie, etc house prices are less, wages are less (hence house prices, etc), but then standard of life is better.

Discuss...

Depends on whether your idea of life is sweating it out in a desert outpost, or a sub-tropical suburban sprawl.

Many Brits find Sydney quite compared to major European cities, many compare Perth/Brisbane to a Wet sunday in Bournmouth on Valium.:D

I think the problem here comes that everyone comes from different places - to some who have lived in small towns, Perth is actually larger and infact more exciting than what they are used to (or maybe even want).

Londoners will clearly see Perth, Brissie, etc as being smaller and potentially more boring, but then again maybe they are fed of of the ratrace that is London life. In my experience a large percentage of people live in the urban sprawl of London and very rarely see the London nightlife which you seem to assume everyone is looking for.

In summary, everyone will have different preferances over where they want to live. That doesn't make them wrong, or boring just because hey choose paying half the price for a house in Brissie which would cost double that in Sydney and probably be much further out. Likewise, those who choose Sydney are equally as entitled to choose that location.


:beer:

Says a lot of the British that need to take valium to combat wet-weather derived cabin fever, doesn't it?

That is a link to the BBC, I was expecting something a little more tangible.

My earlier figures were slightly raw, I did not look up any data but a little digging found that actually the average UK house price for a first time buyer is £138,273 and for those moving on it jumps to £188,301.

It's now GBP170k:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3886097.stm