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.