returning to UK from Perth
 

Hi there,
a query for you all, has anyone emigrated to Perth only to return later to the UK? And if so why?

Reading the Oz/Newzealand sction recently it seems to be only people from Queensland who return want to know if this is correct or not.

Ta ta Taniar

Re: returning to UK from Perth
 

Hello

check out any of the thousands of posts by Pommie Bastard, who has been in Perth for 9 years and is returning to the UK this year I think.

Are you in Perth and plannig on returning, or in ukt UK and planning on migrating?

Mel

Re: returning to UK from Perth
 

Returned to Edinburgh after five years in Perth. Tired of the isolation, poor job prospects, same old routine...haven't regretted it yet. Have really enjoyed being back amongst fmaily and friends, the far greater choice of 'cultural' activities (not quite the right word....by this i mean the whole range of entertainment here in scotland/UK) far greater travel opportunities, better long term job prospects, more interesting work, beautiful countryside, historic buildings etc etc. I could go on, but you probably get the picture. Perth (IMHO) is a fine city, but you reach a point where the isolation and routine there becomes something quite tedious....

Re: returning to UK from Perth
 

Hi there Mel,
we are in England but emigrated to Queensland but came back.
Never been to Perth, dont really know why, other than hubby said it was too isolated.

We are thinking of going again, so know what we are infor in terms of stress, homesickness etc but no idea what Perth is like, apart from all the threads i have read on this web site, the good and the Pommy Bastard view!!!!!!

Re: returning to UK from Perth
 

Hi there,

We found returning and picking your life up again was harder than actually emigrating, but that feeling of exitement and relief you feel when the plane lands in UK is brilliant.

Heard so many people mentioning getting fed up in Oz( and NZ) too !

After 5 years away did you find it easy to return? Have you been back long?

TA TA Taniar

We returned to UK after 3 years in Perth, my wife our 4 teenage sons and i will never look back, we have never been happier since we returned, the grass was not greener in perth and it did not live up to any of our expectations, i'm sure it will/does suit some folk but not those who chose life, Perth is far to dull for lovers of life and living.

Christian

Re: returning to UK from Perth
 

Hi

what made you come back from QLD, and what is making you want to leave the UK again (if you don't mind me asking)? I am just curious as I am shortly making the move (to South Australia) and as such am always keen to hear other people's experiences.

Mel

Re: returning to UK from Perth
 

We've been in Perth for just over a year and will be returning to England in the next year or two for exactly the above reasons.

We are happy to stay for a bit longer, we still have things to see and do BUT we know we want to go back.

Another reason is for our children's education, I've found the government schools in WA poor compared to what we left in England.

After reading all your replies we may be better off staying put and saving all the STRESS , HASSLE and Money involved with emigrating.
Never wanted to go in the first place, i always maintain i was fooled by my hubby promising we would get a huge house with a swimming pool and what did we end up with ?a top floor FLAT (sorry apartment!) in a block without a lift!!

That Billy Connelly has a lot of explaining to do!!!!!?

Ta ta Taniar

for whats its worth..... My wife and I emigrated to Perth from England in 1974 at the age of 25 looking for a new life, we were young and enjoyed it, before we emigrated we went on a 6 months working holiday in 1972 to see if we would like it. We loved it.

we lived in perth for 23 years, started a business, bought houses etc, travelled, the usual things. As you get older your life and interests change.

I found myself that after 23 years and aged 47 I was missing several things from England, the 4 seasons, countryside, hawthorn hedges, villages etc etc


We had visited England several times on business and pleasure during our time in Perth and always enjoyed our visit, we did look at moving back to England, but going for a holliday and living there are two different things, when we looked at living there, we realised the reaons why we left in the first place, too many people, too much traffic and the climate was too cold.

we looked at France / New Zealand / Southern Germany and the US. we eventually moved to Tasmania and have lived here happily for 7 years, we have most of the things here we missed from England, 4 seasons, mountains, villages and even hawthorn hedges and dry stone walls, we live on a 9 acre property with views over rolling green hills and the ocean with mountain ranges to our west and south.

Perth is a place for young people, it is a hot dry isolated city with a growing water availability problem, it also has a growing crime problem, your compatibility with perth will depend on your age and your attitude, why not visit the place first ?

personally, I find that a lot of people try and live two lives, the one they left behind in England and the one they would like to start in Australia, you can only live one life, you have to give one up to start another, dont think for a moment that you can live both, you cant, you will end up a "to-and-from" as they call them, you will never be content.

my two cents worth :)

I enjoyed reading your story. I'm glad you are now settled.

I would like to visit Tasmania the scenery there looks spectacular, I watched a programme on ABC a few days ago about 2 Tasmanian photographers who were tragically killed whilst working in the remote South West region of Tassie. They were passionate about the area and I can see why, it's beautiful.

Kath, thanks for your reply, yes I saw the same TV program, I thought it was just a little bit political though.

Tasmania is unlike anywhere else I've been and I've been to most countries. Sometimes it reminds me of Devon and Cornwall, sometimes, New Zealand, sometimes Scotland. Its a great place to retire to, but not much entertainment here for young people apart from bush walking and the unemployment is quite high.

we love it here, we raise sheep and cattle, and during the past 7 years weve had over 40 visitors stay from Perth, UK, US and Europe, they are all blown away with the place some have even stayed :)

one thing I've found with Australia is that there is always a climate to suit everyone, from sub antarctic to tropical and everything in between, I know of no other single country with the climate range of Australia

Re: returning to UK from Perth
 

Hi There,
We moved out to Perth from the UK in March this year and I soon realised that this wasn't the place I wanted to live 'forever'. We have decided that we will give it another year or so and head back to the UK. Our daughter of 6 who we thought would adapt easily is missing the UK terribly. We thought at this age she would be more adaptable but how wrong we were!

Having a big house, pool and the beach nearby doesn't replace family and friends that we have grown up with. We also found the cost of living far higher (very similar to UK) than we expected and my husbands wage is very poor compared to the UK. We are financially worse off here and have a longer term mortgage than we had in the UK.

:)

Re: returning to UK from Perth
 

Going back through some old posts and wondering if you have an update of how you are getting along, would love to know.

Cheers
Merlot :)

Well done, Merlot. You saved my the bother of searching out them old posts myself!

Some really interesting ones there. Unfortunately, i didn't read them at the time of writing as I hadn't yet emigrated to Australia then!

But all good. Let's hope for some feedback.

Wilko

Tasmania sounds like a wonderful place, I´ll definitely check it out sometime..

However, I´m not quite sure about:

I´ve been in Brazil now for quite a few years, and have lived in various places, such as Manaus (slapbang in the Amazon jungle) and southern Brazil (near the uruguayan border) and I can assure you there are quite a few climatic differences between both places... But then, of course, Brazil´s not everyone´s "cup of tea"...

:( HI EVERYONE,
MY HUSBAND,MY THRE GIRLS AND MYSELF MOVED OUT TO NORTH QUEENSLAND IN JULY OF LAST YEAR.WE RETURNED IN OCTOBER AS I WAS CONCERNED ABOUT CRIME AND WAS MISSING EVERYTHING ABOUT ENGLAND.
sorry just realised that i had capital lock on.
Anyway,since being back it has been one nightmare after another.
My husbands pay has been cut at work,we had to fight in the appeal courts to get my girls back in their schools and there way on earth that we can afford to buy a house in england again unless the housing market collapses.
We are currently renting privately but have to move out in march as we cannot afford the rent any longer.
so basically we will be homeless.
We are totally stuffed.
WE are now in talks to go back to australia as we cannot afford to live in this country anymore,we are basically priced out.
We also emigrated 10 years ago as well to perth as that is where i am from originally.i hated perth and always will do and yes the crime is really high there.you gotta keep doors and windows locked all the time in alot of the suburbs.
anyway i would not wish my last year on anybody,it has been hell on earth and is not over by a long shot.:(

I'm sorry to hear that Gypsey. I hope that you get back to Oz OK and get your life back on the rails.

I am however interested to hear your experiences as I (who left the UK just two years ago), and one or two others, have tried to warn people here, on British Expats, that the UK is now outrageously, almost unbearably, expensive. The thanks we have received is a thorough slagging off by one and all for daring to voice such a "negative" view point, .... or a "realistic" viewpoint, depending on your side of the argument! :rolleyes:

I have to agree (dammit! :D ) with your opinion regarding house prices, they are outrageously expensive, and of course being the #1 expense for most people, that puts a serious dent in your finances. But I didn't think from my time there in 2000 that the general cost of everything else was much higher than the US, for example, balancing everything out (I'm excepting houses from my statement).

This is a much worse problem for people who want to go/go back to the UK who have no house. Anyone who has kept their house after emigrating, or who has owned a house for the past 20 years has much less of a problem b/c they are paying a 30k mortgage on a 100k house. It only hurts those people if they upgrade or move to a more expensive area.

And to be fair, I don't think that everyone who has given you or other negative posters a hard time are slagging you for being realistic. I definitely think it's important to have trustworthy information, even if it is negative. I certainly don't agree with the "only positive comments here!" mentality - forewarned is forearmed. I just think that sometimes the "You're stupid if you even think the UK is a nice place" posts wear down people's patience (I'm not referring to you). Just as the "rose-tinted glasses" attitude is unbalanced, so is the "doomsayer" attitude. I certainly appreciate that you spend a lot of time posting useful information, as you know.

Perhaps it has been your uncompromising attitude towards the UK. Your posts appear dogmatic and you are clearly unwilling to accept that the UK is not ALL bad. You were proven wrong that the education system in England was worse than the US equivalent and you still persisted in mouthing off. Perhaps if you bent a little you wouldn't get such a slagging off.:)

Fingers crossed, I wanted to get the goss from the horses mouths so to speak!

Sorry if I seem that way, there are many good things about the UK, and even if I never return to the UK to live part of me will always be British.

I am a product of the British education system, and I believe I got a good education from it, but it has been screwed around with almost continuously ever since I finished my full-time education and I don't beleive that it is what it was, nor that it is going in the right direction either.

For the most part the British police do a good job, so far as they can with one hand tied behind their back.

The standard of driving in the UK is significantly superior to anything that I have seen in the US.

========================================

As the above things, and more, are covered frequently in posts on this board I see little point in echoing them.

I accept I am guilty of looking on the dark side in some of my post on the MBTTU board, but in my posts I try to provide a counter-point to the overly enthusiastic posts about moving back to the UK, which means that my posts are not balanced on their own.

I am, if you like, playing the Devil's advocate, do I need to apologize for that?

A very fair and decent reply Pulaski. The Devil is always looking for new advocates! I think the overly enthusiastic posts are simply a reflection of excitement etc. No harm in that. Keep us honest though!

I am not sure the house prices in the UK are that high relatively speaking. If you were out of the housing market in either Oz and UK over the past 5 years your basically stuffed unless you are prepared to load up and service large debts. Most people that have successfully moved overseas have sold houses in UK and then used the funds to buy. I am afraid that moving to Oz is no longer the answer to a lower cost of living as compared to earnings house prices are off the scale. In Brisbane (one of the cheaper cities) houses in outer suburbs which cost $150k a few years ago are now $300k+ which is 8 to 10 times average salary. Rents look cheap until you earn local currencies. I cannot speak for the USA and Canada but on a recent trip house prices looked pretty high to me in California.

We live in Surrey apparently one of the most expensive counties in UK and yet there are still 3 bed houses around for less than £150k. In the UK the mortgage market is so competitive that 100% loans are readily available and on that house the monthly cost is going to be roughly £700 per month interest only (obviously less with a deposit). That may seem high to some people who remember the good old days but to keep it in perspective that is probably less than renting the same house. At the same time you have access to full employment with even low paid work earning £800 to £1,000 a month so with both working that is easily affordable.

You can still buy houses in Wales for less than £100,000. Same in Scotland and Northern and Western UK.

Cost of living wise there is'nt much in it now between UK and Oz. But given the salaries in UK now you would probably be better off here particularly with free education, free healthcare and all sorts of means tested benefits to help low income families.

I know its harsh and I feel sorry for people who are not in the market but it seems hard to single out the Uk when the same policies that created the problem are being used throughout the world. They may still get the last laugh if interest rates rise strongly in a few years and the housing markets collapse !

Yes, I think one word describes the UK and US - variable. You mentioned CA, and yes, it is loony what you have to pay there. But then where I am (town in rural NC), you can get a decent 3BR 2BA with garage and half acre for the equivalent of 50k-70k sterling - and people have posted before (Michigan, I think) of even cheaper deals. Plus, prices here (eastern NC) haven't moved in 5 years and aren't likely to. I keep hearing on the news of the US house price boom but we certainly haven't seen it here (plus in US a boom seems to be 5% price rise a year, in UK it seems more like 15% a year).

I guess here (Eastern NC) is the equivalent of rural Wales or Scotland - cheaper. One difference I see thogh is that a 3BR in the UK is usually much smaller, lot less land, and much less likely to have a garage or off-road parking.

I just don't see a house price bust in the UK, or major interest rate rises. It seems the whole economy would collapse b/c so many people would be unable to buy anything. From what I read on the bbc news site (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3402557.stm even many people with long-standing mortgages are now heavily in debt b/c they've remortgaged to current house prices in order to buy that plasma TV or vacation to Orlando.

Seems to me the people who are really losing out are first-time buyers.

too true. i have begun investigating buying a flat but on a single person's salary with existing student debt makes it hard. i guess birmingham isnt that expensive (or parts of it arent) in comparison to say london but although some flats are affordable it doesnt mean that they are in nice areas.