Moving back!

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Discussion

Colonial

13,553 posts

204 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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suthol said:
Another problem is the developers knocking so many first homebuyer type properties down and rebuilding townhouses or McMansions to make the area more up market which also prices them out.
And look at the standard of house and land packages - We'd be fine in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, kitchen, dining, lounge kind of place.

Can you get one of them from a project home builder? Nope. You struggle to get a 3 bedroom place.

Then because infrastructure provisioning has been passed on to local government you have incredibly high developer contributions for new release land - the cheapest in the growth precincts is around 30k per lot. Then Council will want the landowner to enter into a VPA to fund things like sewer pumping stations, pay for roadworks etc etc and suddenly construction of new lots (let alone houses) is nowhere near as profitable. So why bother? The only way you can make it profitable is if you own a large block of land and do your own subdivision and then sell off the block.

Then you have a piss poor public transport system and overloaded road network. I've got friends who live 50 miles out of London and have a short-ish commute on a largely reliable and frequent rail network. You ain't going to find that in Sydney.

No foresight, no planning, just "she'll be right mate" and short term vote winning solutions from career politicians with their snouts firmly in the trough.

Sydney in particular is fked. The system is fked. The country needs to wake up to itself. The myth of the lucky country, a land of opportunity is just that. A myth. It is a self indulgent, narcissistic, whingeing community of people who couldn't give a damn about their neighbours, only how much they can cream off the system.

thehawk

9,335 posts

206 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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Bibbs said:
An hour out of Reading? What, London? Bit more expensive there mate hehe
Or Newbury and the other direction. But having a quick look myself, plenty of stock in Reading for 150-300k - I mean you can't expect Northern England prices can you.

thehawk

9,335 posts

206 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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Colonial said:
Then you have a piss poor public transport system and overloaded road network. I've got friends who live 50 miles out of London and have a short-ish commute on a largely reliable and frequent rail network. You ain't going to find that in Sydney.
Very true, but I might add that Australians are addicted to their cars, they are downright lazy. I live in one of these new suburbs and public transport could be better. But the new station built is around 2km from my house. That's actually a decent 30 minute walk in the morning and afternoon - something that we should all be encouraged to do. But in 6 months of walking around my suburb I sometimes have to snap out of the idea that I'm on a Walking Dead episode - there are just no people walking.


Bibbs

3,733 posts

209 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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thehawk said:
Or Newbury and the other direction. But having a quick look myself, plenty of stock in Reading for 150-300k - I mean you can't expect Northern England prices can you.
Nope, prices were probably about the same, and I was on about 30k and was offered a x4 loan.

I looked for 120k (minus fees) and really found nothing much.

(numbers are approx, as it was about 10 years ago now)

I lived in Newbury for a while. I liked it. Still couldn't afford anything nice.

Ended up in Fleet, which was where I first moved to as a young teenager from Aus. Again, not a lot I could afford on a single salary.

Colonial

13,553 posts

204 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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thehawk said:
Very true, but I might add that Australians are addicted to their cars, they are downright lazy. I live in one of these new suburbs and public transport could be better. But the new station built is around 2km from my house. That's actually a decent 30 minute walk in the morning and afternoon - something that we should all be encouraged to do. But in 6 months of walking around my suburb I sometimes have to snap out of the idea that I'm on a Walking Dead episode - there are just no people walking.
Yep. It's why I like living in inner-urban areas.

It's a nice 2km walk to the nearest station, but it's along a nice piece of water that has a great pedestrian/cycleway along it. Plenty of bars and restaurants as well. And it is packed. 8am and 5.30pm and there is a steady stream of people which is great to see.

I work from home 3 days a week, and for those 3 days plus weekends I tend to only use the car if I have to go out of town or into the burbs. It's brilliant. Doing what I do for a living I can see so many faults with how Australian cities and towns are planned. And as you say, Australians are addicted to the automobile.

Where abouts are you out of interest?

Bibbs

3,733 posts

209 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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thehawk said:
Very true, but I might add that Australians are addicted to their cars, they are downright lazy. I live in one of these new suburbs and public transport could be better. But the new station built is around 2km from my house. That's actually a decent 30 minute walk in the morning and afternoon - something that we should all be encouraged to do. But in 6 months of walking around my suburb I sometimes have to snap out of the idea that I'm on a Walking Dead episode - there are just no people walking.
"Yeah, but nah".

I work in the CBD (Perth), and live about 10km away.

I walk to the station (500m) every day, 10 mins on the train, and then 1.5km walk to my client. It also costs under $5 a day.

All my co-workers do the same (some have to drive to a train station, but none drive to the city). But then I also know plenty of people that drive everywhere.

On the flip side, I knew no-one who used public transport in the UK for commuting. We only used to use the train to get to Reading centre / London. Buses were worse than useless.

Colonial

13,553 posts

204 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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Bibbs said:
Nope, prices were probably about the same, and I was on about 30k and was offered a x4 loan.

I looked for 120k (minus fees) and really found nothing much.

(numbers are approx, as it was about 10 years ago now)

I lived in Newbury for a while. I liked it. Still couldn't afford anything nice.

Ended up in Fleet, which was where I first moved to as a young teenager from Aus. Again, not a lot I could afford on a single salary.
See what you can get within 45 minutes of Sydney for 280k (70k average salary)

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-unit-nsw-can...

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-apartment-ns...

If you can stretch to 340k you can get this! http://www.realestate.com.au/property-townhouse-ns...

Bibbs

3,733 posts

209 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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Colonial said:
See what you can get within 45 minutes of Sydney for 280k (70k average salary)

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-unit-nsw-can...

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-apartment-ns...

If you can stretch to 340k you can get this! http://www.realestate.com.au/property-townhouse-ns...
Niiiice.

But if you are working in the centre of Sydney, you should be on more than the average wage, but still, that's shocking.

$350k .. about 45kms out of Perth (an hour on the train) :-
http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-wa-bal...

Not ideal, but liveable. It's looks like one of those with the garage at the back of the hosue.

Hitch78

6,100 posts

193 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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Thread hijack!

Mattt

Original Poster:

16,661 posts

217 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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It's fine! It's all along the lines of my thinking, the one income here is hard - whereas in the UK we can both earn good money.

thehawk

9,335 posts

206 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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Colonial said:
Doing what I do for a living I can see so many faults with how Australian cities and towns are planned. And as you say, Australians are addicted to the automobile.

Where abouts are you out of interest?
I work from home a lot too and force myself to walk to get the activity levels up so see a lot of faults too. I live in Pt Cook in Melbourne, where they have managed to build a brand new trains station (Williams Landing) and somehow managed to not have any walkable footpaths to get there from our suburb, that is between 500m and 3km away from the station. You can walk, but that involves walking on roads or unkempt grass verges that see your trousers and shoes covered in grass/mud. The lack of any integrated planning or foresight is truly staggering.

Probably should give a shout-out to Fitbit for my obsession with walking everywhere now.


Edited by thehawk on Thursday 23 January 07:44

Bibbs

3,733 posts

209 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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Mattt said:
It's fine! It's all along the lines of my thinking, the one income here is hard - whereas in the UK we can both earn good money.
Will you head back to London?

Mattt

Original Poster:

16,661 posts

217 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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Bibbs said:
Will you head back to London?
Outside of London but S East

PomBstard

6,728 posts

241 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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Fully understand the need to move back. We thought about it a few times in the first couple of years, then once we had PR, and were in a position to buy our own place, it felt much easier. It took about 4 years before we felt that we were 'home'.

As for property, we were lucky. We had already bought and sold a couple of places in the Westcountry (Weston super Mare, would you believe it, and Bristol) and doing well when selling the house meant we had just, and I mean just, enough for a deposit on a nice 2-bed unit in Sydney. We were helped extraordinarily by the exchange rate at the time, which meant we got $2.55 to the GBP. No idea how we'd manage it now, and I really do understand the difficulties of getting a place here. We always said that if we couldn't live close to the beach, then we'd move back to Europe, not necessarily UK.

I think me and Colonial are in similar businesses as I've also watched, and been involved in, the expansion of the NW and SW Growth Centres with astonishment at the lack of integrated planning. Celebrated developments seem to completely avoid the need for footpaths, and links to the rest of the city are often just tokenistic. Perth does seem a little better in this regard, but I don't think its spread over quite the same area.

Whatever, I'm still not sure I'd like to head back to SE England, but each to their own, and I wish you luck with it all. At least you'll get easier access to all those proper driving roads. I miss the Alps, the Dales, Exmoor, Dartmoor, the Peak District, Scotland, North Wales, the roads I knew like the back of my hand across the Mendips. You get my drift... biggrin

randomwalk

534 posts

163 months

Tuesday 11th February 2014
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I am surprised financially it would be better off back in UK. We ara Australian and have spent last 4 years living in London (addmittedly a period of negative economic growth), decided to return to Oz as the opportunities for us were better, whilst the cost of living is higher here it is overall a more prosperous place to live. BTW we did love our time in UK, people were very friendly and welcoming, had some awesome driving experiences too !

Siscar

6,315 posts

128 months

Tuesday 11th February 2014
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randomwalk said:
I am surprised financially it would be better off back in UK. We ara Australian and have spent last 4 years living in London (addmittedly a period of negative economic growth), decided to return to Oz as the opportunities for us were better, whilst the cost of living is higher here it is overall a more prosperous place to live. BTW we did love our time in UK, people were very friendly and welcoming, had some awesome driving experiences too !
I'd be interested to know what you mean by 'more prosperous'. I split my time between the UK and Australia (6 month UK, 4 months Aus and 2 months USA, SA, NZ last year) and I'd describe australia as being more expensive but not more prosperous.

Of course all this stuff is personal experience and for everyone that's a very limited view, but the lifestyle you get from $100k, for example, in Sydney or Perth really isn't that great. Warmer weather, more of an outdoor life if you get the time to experience it but prosperous? I'm not so sure.

custardtart

1,725 posts

252 months

Tuesday 11th February 2014
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Siscar said:
randomwalk said:
I am surprised financially it would be better off back in UK. We ara Australian and have spent last 4 years living in London (addmittedly a period of negative economic growth), decided to return to Oz as the opportunities for us were better, whilst the cost of living is higher here it is overall a more prosperous place to live. BTW we did love our time in UK, people were very friendly and welcoming, had some awesome driving experiences too !
I'd be interested to know what you mean by 'more prosperous'. I split my time between the UK and Australia (6 month UK, 4 months Aus and 2 months USA, SA, NZ last year) and I'd describe australia as being more expensive but not more prosperous.

Of course all this stuff is personal experience and for everyone that's a very limited view, but the lifestyle you get from $100k, for example, in Sydney or Perth really isn't that great. Warmer weather, more of an outdoor life if you get the time to experience it but prosperous? I'm not so sure.
This is a reasonable attempt at examining the difference to average workers. The upshot was that Aussies earn a fair bit more than their UK compatriots for the same jobs and this is not off set by the additional cost of living.
http://www.bobinoz.com/blog/10153/australian-and-u...

Siscar

6,315 posts

128 months

Tuesday 11th February 2014
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custardtart said:
This is a reasonable attempt at examining the difference to average workers. The upshot was that Aussies earn a fair bit more than their UK compatriots for the same jobs and this is not off set by the additional cost of living.
http://www.bobinoz.com/blog/10153/australian-and-u...
Interesting but not in line with my experience of what we pay in the two different countries and the lifestyles they afford with it. Of course it's a whole complicated thing with a lot of non monetary things making up lifestyle anyway and what you like is a massive factor in it. But with so many things massively cheaper (start with cars!) my experience is that the UK software developer, for example, is able to afford quite a few things that are out of their range in Australia.

Bibbs

3,733 posts

209 months

Tuesday 11th February 2014
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custardtart said:
This is a reasonable attempt at examining the difference to average workers. The upshot was that Aussies earn a fair bit more than their UK compatriots for the same jobs and this is not off set by the additional cost of living.
http://www.bobinoz.com/blog/10153/australian-and-u...
The problem is they don't seem to take inflation into account (I only skim read).

I tend to go off a few things to work out the differences :-

Booze, cars, pub steak and petrol.

A pint was 3 quid, now 10 bucks
A VXR8 was 15k, GTS/Clubsport is 35k
A lunchtime pub steak was about 10 quid, and I get get a steak here for 10 bucks
Petrol was 1.40, now 1.50

No my salary is over 4, almost 5 times the amount I got in the UK. So I think I'm better off here.

Your mileage kilometerage may vary.

onny

324 posts

261 months

Wednesday 12th February 2014
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I don't think we can talk about Aus and UK as a general comparison. We need to talk about Aus and (London and non London). The difference is down to property/mortgage/rental cost. While in general property/rental are similar between London and most of Aus (capital cities). Outside of London is very different story, there is a big divide between London and the rest of the UK.

I've been back in the UK for nearly a year now (was in Canberra for 6 years before that). I'm currently in the West Midlands and my rent here for a 3bd bungalow is about 1/2 of what I was paying for a 2bd apartment in Canberra. My Bills/food shopping/entertainment etc is about 2/3 cheaper in the UK. Petrol is about the only thing that is more expensive for me in the UK.

Here is the killer. I'm an IT contractor, my gross income here is about 2/3 of what I was getting in Canberra. But my net income here after paying all the taxes and NI etc I actually take home slightly more here than I do in Aus. Big difference in Tax law between the 2 country.

For me I'm much better off in the UK but I think it will be in general as well providing you are not based in SE England.