toniochen

Hi,

I am new to this forum and I hope some of you will be able to help me.
I am currently working in London and I have been offered a position in either Sydney or Singapore. I am in my early 30s, married, my wife is originally from China so adaptation should be easy with both options, and we have no children.

If you have visited or lived in both countries (even better !) I am curious about your opinion. Thanks in advance.

Kooky.

Hi, have lived in Singapore and currently living in Sydney. Singapore for us was supposed to be a brief adventure, but ended up being six years purely because we were happy there. Sydney is supposed to be a more permanent thing, we've been here three years and bought property.

What is your view on your move? If it's a posting, I'd say go to Singapore and take advantage of the low taxation. It's a great place to live - I know people there over 20 years - and you'll have a great social life, and access to other places, but we decided we'd go mad if we were "expats" for much longer. And we weren't even very expatty Mixed mainly with long-termers on local packages.

Sydney is great too, more like real life. Expensive though. (That said, I'm currently on a stopover in Singapore and finding it quite expensive, but then I've just been in the UK and am doing GBP-SGD conversions in my head and they're scary!)

toniochen

I think we are more looking for a permanent thing, we have lived in china, usa, london etc... and we would be keen on settling somewhere I guess, we also plan to have children in the near future so it will obviously be a factor.

Regarding the move itself it's a personal choice, I am not sent out there by my firm, I am actually being recruited by competitors to join them so it could be a very long term move if I really enjoy my time there or a very short if it doesn't work at all

Taxes is not the major issue here for me, Singapore income tax is obviously significantly lower but the difference really starts to kick in if you earn significant amount of money (last bracket is 45% in Australia vs. 20% in Singapore) and I am not at that level yet, in addition the package for Singapore also take into consideration the low income taxes so the gross salary is lower.

Issue seems to be more the rental costs which are just atrocious in Singapore, I did a quick simulation and it was nearly half my salary...how far can you live from the centre (my firm is based in the business city centre)

Regarding the expat thing I am not too much into it, I quite like spend time wiht locals or with my wife, not too crazy about the expat club but happy to meet people from all over the world for sure !

Thanks,

Kooky.

Re. taxes, my husband was on a decent salary and only ever paid around 12%. In his field salaries are definitely better in Singapore. In net terms we were a lot worse off when we first moved to Oz because of tax but decided to move regardless.

Yes rents are high in Singapore. We paid a similar amount in Sydney for a smaller house but in a much better area (Geylang v McMahons Point!). Have had dinner with friends here in Sg tonight and they were talking about Sydney being one of the most expensive property markets in the world then, in the next sentence, told me a friend has just sold his 3-bed condo for S$3m. Well that's a LOT more than our similar place in Sydney cost! Nice area, but I think S$3m would get a much better one in Sydney.

You can live a fair way out of the city if you have good transport links. Will your wife work? If not, what will she do all day? I was a trailing spouse and didn't work initially, and I didn't really like being far out so we moved further in, to an expat area (Holland Village). Then we moved to the red light district to get a conservation house in a more local area and actually loved it. Great food and transport links.

Have you found singaporeexpats.com yet? It has some great property info.

bakedbean

Tough choice and depends on your "likes" but you said a Permanent Move - maybe better quality of life in Australia... I don't know.

Singapore is also good to experience but not sure about long term living, though I have flip-flopped on this subject. I used to think I'd want to stay long-term but changed my mind there.

Seasider, what are you finding expensive in Singapore?

bakedbean

Oh gawd, you're not moving again, are you?

toniochen

Right now there is no plan for my partner to work, at least in the short term. so far I see Sydney as a better bet for long term plan and a better lifestyle, Singapore seems more a business place (fast pace, regional hub, low income taxes) and I am not sure about the real long term potential.

I have spent a lot of time in HK, how different is Singapore ?

Thanks for all your comments and feedback, really usuful

Kooky.

BB - taxis, western snacks, everything I guess. Probably just because I was doing the conversion, coming straight from the UK where I was paying a tenner for 2 bar meals.

toniochen - I've only ever visited Hong Kong, never lived there. There's a poster on here called ex-reg who has, I think, lived in both. If he doesn't post soon (he's usually very informative about Singapore) drop him a PM.

My view is that Singapore is easier to get around, less "foreign", and definitely less polluted. I have autoimmune disease and we decided not to move there when we were looking around, before we decided on Sydney.

ex reg

Knowledgable?????
Dunno about that.
But always willing to stick an oar in.

We found that HK was the more business oriented of HK and Singapore.
We probably enjoyed HK more but not by much.

Certainly the money was better in HK or maybe the reserves built up quicker there even though we seemed to spend more.
Accommodation is more expensive in HK although Singapore isn't cheap.
Obviously cars are much more expensive in Singapore.
Public transport is about the same in both places.

We travelled/holidayed in more places from Singapore for some reason.

Getting away to Macau from HK and JB and Malacca from Singapore was easy and a good break from the pressure cookers of both places.

We wish we'd found ourselves in HK earlier in our lives.

Perhaps the haze has more of a bearing in HK today than when we were there, although Singapore does occasionally get a haze from fires in Sumatra.

And as Seasider said Singapore is easier as far as languages go but HK isn't difficult.

bakedbean

I think that's what we like about you

Thanks seasider. We're driving down to Singers later this week. Another of our epic roadtrips I'm trying to remember when we last visited Singapore - I think it must have been a good 3 years ago, but we were quite shocked with prices then. Maybe it's just because we've got used to a cheaper kind of living in Phuket and Penang. It's probably just that.

A tenner for 2 barmeals sounds good. Is UK getting cheaper?? But wrong forum for discussing that I guess.

Gongville

hi we lived in Singapore for over 9 years and at Christmas moved to Wollongong an hour outside of Sydney. We originally moved to Singapore from London for a 2 year contract! We did a mixture of the expat and local life, husband worked in local industry I worked in the city for an English firm.

Singapore is a great place to live and having had my two children there a fantastic place to have babies and young children. Help is cheap and there are lots of other mothers around for company. It is expensive but things like travel and eating out are cheap (if you go local). We loved Singapore but once the children became older it became too expensive, schooling is very very expensive (pre school cost are OK). Also it became too claustrophobic. Going to the mall every weekend or the same beach, zoo, bird park became a bit monotonous. Even with frequent travel to neighboring countries.

Australia has given the children a chance to enjoy the outdoor life, space and views! I would highly recommend Singapore but it is not a permanent sort of place, friends frequently move on (even though we had lots of local and long term friends people still move on). It is a very privileged life but not real at times.

Gongville

PS take things on the other site (Singapore-expat) with a pinch of salt, there are a lots of strange and bitter people who post there! I used to have one friend who regularly posted ridiculous post designed to inflame and wind people up. but saying that the property information should be up to date. It is very very expensive but you can find reasonable places but it takes being on the ground to find them. Good luck.

Kooky.

Absolutely, I would never recomend the forum part of the site. Same for the one with its name the other way round