tiger222

Thanks for explaining that Geelong. Were you one of the people who had put your money into the bond prior to the change?

tiger222

Good work on the sifting and selling on Ebay. I haven't done the Ebay thing yet. I do have a garage sale pile growing though.

Another piece of furniture went away this morning. The downstairs is coming into shape. Still have to sort through the bedrooms. And all the other "stuff"

geelong

Unfortunately we are one of the unlucky (up to 5000 of us) applicants who had the bonds withdrawn before we were able to invest in them, leaving us in application limbo

tiger222

I've been asking around and it's clear that the price on the home around the corner from me is over priced. So there goes the "extra" $25,000.

This story was in the paper today - so the housing bad news (from a seller's perspective, continues.

"A total of 355 single family home listings sold in April - a decrease of 21% from the 450 listings sold a year ago. A total of 1,050 listings sold year-to-date through the month of April, compared to 1,432 during the same time period in 2007 - a decrease of 27%."

tiger222

Sorry to seem a little slow, but if there was some wrong doing with the bonds - ie your money - isn't it better that you didn't invest? I know you needed the 5 points - but can't you get the points some other way?

geelong

It was a big shock, even to the agents when the bonds were stopped. There wasn't anything wrong with the actual bonds, just one man in an Australian bank working fraudulently, allegedly.A group of students thought they had a bank deal which was too good to be true, to gain the money for the extra 5 points, and as it turned out it was too good. Unfortunately for the up to 5,000 of us who weren't involved, the state treasuries became nervous and wouldn't issue the bonds. We were all at the end of our visa process and had our money sitting in an Australian bank account waiting to give to our case officer.

Since November we have all been waiting for DIAC and Senator Evans to put a solution in place. We have been e-mailing media, the Senator, DIAC. Have sent individual and group letters, all rung the Senator's office and are in
the process of sending a petition, which can be found on the 5 point thread. No information has been made public and all we get are standard replies saying the Senator is aware of our situation and a decision will be made sometime in the future. We have all found it stressful not being able to provide an alternative to gain the 5 points.

We made the decision, on advice from our agent, for our main applicant to sit the IELTS and start a new application and have the two running alongside each other. Hence we are now April 08 applicants as well as July 07 ones too!

Let's all keep our fingers crossed that it will all go smoothly this time!

CharleneG

Unfortunately garage sales are not big this side of the Atlantic, otherwise I would probably sell more stuff. Car boot sales are the only other option but they start really early in the morning and I can't really face getting up as early at the weekend as I have to for work.
OH is upset his designer label clothes (which no longer fit) are not selling so well on ebay but £10 and £15 here and there do start to add up. He's got to do all the postage for himself though as he's off work this week.
The really hard part is going to be the T shirt mountain in his wardrobe. Although he wares the same 1/2 dozen or so all the time I know he will not want to get rid of any of the 120 others even if they don't fit any more and haven't done for some time.

I am adamant that all our furniture is coming with us, we've not got a lot but it's good quality stuff which would be expensive to replace.
I am going to replace our white goods as I will be leaving them in the house while we rent it though, I saw a thread a while ago recommending dishwashers, tumble dryers and washing machines were better taken with you if you bought Bosch as we get the German made ones here and Oz get the Asian made ones which don't last so long.

Keep us on the front page!

tiger222

Charlene -

That's interesting to me. How do car boot sales work? Are their designated locations for people to drive to with their stuff in the car? Then they set their stuff out behind the car?

That reminds me of Tailgate parties. Do you guys have Tailgate parties before sporting events?

benlast

Amazing... there's everything in Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_boot_sale

We boosted our karma and sense of self-worth, if not our bank balance, by giving away a lot of stuff on the local Freecycle. We managed to shift seven very large bookcases this way!

Cheers
b

tiger222

Ben -

I LOVE freecycle! I got rid of boxes of old (more than 19 years) computer guts using freecycle last summer.

Here's MORE Karma for you from April thread.

tiger222

And here's the Wiki link for tailgate parties! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailgate_party

nja

No movement again according to the processing time line. Sometimes think we'll never get our visas. This waiting is painful. Hopefully the delays are something simple; maybe they've met their quota for the fiscal year so can't give out any new visas. If this is the case, hopefully they're working behind the scenes so we'll see a flood of new visas in the new fiscal year (which hopefully starts soon - I seem to remember reading somewhere that the fiscal year start July 1st). Guess I'll just have to be patient and see what happens.

- n

twinsmom65

You are correct, the start of the new fiscal year in Australia is July 1, 2008, so that is probably why there is not alot of new movement, also heard a rumour that there is a new computer system that went into place May 26, 2008 that hopefully should speed things up a bit (okay well wishful thinking anyway LOL). Plus the new quota for the 2008/2009 year has been increased by 30%.... so hopefully, if all the stars aligne, it might mean good news for us this coming year.

Karen

tiger222

You're right N, this waiting is painful! With no movement for over a month, I'm beginning to wonder too.

There's supposed to be an additional 6,000 visas issues by the end of June - so hopefully that will move us up BEFORE the end of the fiscal year. The new Fiscal year begins July 1.

On the Processing Times thread, there was an August 29 applicant with a Visa posted recently. Because of the change in the law beginning September 1, people applied for Visas just before that deadline. So there was a large backlog. So if they're on to Aug 29, that means that is almost through! (Hopefully)

All we can do is hope and get ready.

My OH is getting a little depressed at the prospect of going through another Wisconsin Winter!

twinsmom65

Hey Tiger,

Are you not working either???, okay I am working, but not really, spending way too much time on this site... Am a little addicited.. How are things in Wisconsin???? Things in Southern Ontario not too bad... at least the weather is not bad.

Hopefully in another month or two once the backlog goes through we might see some movement on the newer applicants eh!!

Well take care, just poking around the site until my client shows (if they show)

Karen