Another 'I'm looking to emigrate' Question

[The Beaver King]

Hi guys/girls; I'm afraid I'm going to pollute your forum with another emigration question. Sorry.

I'm currently in the process of deciding whether to emigrate to Australia, temporarily initially, but I may look at permanent citizenship should I love it enough to stay.

I've done my general research on the main points; visa applications, restrictions, health checks, English tests etc. I'll provide brief points in case it proves relevant to my question.

I work in Construction, M&E services to be precise. I have a potential sponsor lined up, so I would be coming over on a temporary work 457 visa. I'd be coming over with my partner and will probably be based in Brisbane. I've done a few skill point checks and I get 70 without doing the English test, so I think I'm pretty safe on that front. Hopefully that is enough insight.

My main question is to those that have emigrated already.

You get your job lined up before you leave, arrange to have stuff shipped over, get on the plane, land and then....?

What I mean is how do I go about renting somewhere? I'm assuming I can't just land, walk to an estate agents, pick a house to rent and pay the deposit in cash? I'd need a bank account or something; so can I set one up from the UK or would I have to do it when I get over?

Will I need to stay in a hotel for the first 2 weeks to get everything set up or can I sort everything from the UK and then just fly over?

It sounds like a simple issue, but I can't quite fathom the order in which I would need to do things

Secondary question; I don't suppose any ex-pats have any advice or things I should probably be aware of before I make my decision? I'd like to think I've covered all the angles, but I won't really know until I get over there.

Thanks

[The Beaver King]

Thanks guys, all very interesting.

I should have an employer lined up prior to moving, as I will be coming over on a sponsored visa. Good points regarding hotels for the first few weeks; hopefully that will give me time to scout a few houses prior to settling.

I'd be moving over with my GF and another couple, as me and my mate are both HVAC Engineers with extensive offsite fabrication experience. I've been reading through a lot of the paperwork and there seems to be a lot of hoops to jump through, thankfully it looks like the employer does most of the difficult bits.

I suppose my main concern is getting myself setup and legal. I have this horrible vision that I forget soemthing vital or unknown and end up getting hit with a massive bill (like not setting up tax properly).

Still, I'll keep doing my research. If anybody has any experience with Eastern Australia (Brisbane), I'd love to hear it.

Thanks again

[The Beaver King]

Thanks guys. Insightful.

Here in the UK we are doing some work on a large hospital on the Sunshine Coast for a MC. I won't go into details, but it should be pretty obvious

The employer we are looking to work for is based in Tennyson, so I'd like to live within a commutable distance. An hour by car or similar would be fine.

In my mind, I'd be looking for a 3 bed house with pool, reasonably modern, nice area, like to be near the beach but not essential. Would $600-700 a week seem realistic or am I well off the mark? It's difficult to judge without knowing roughly where things are located.

You've got me worried now Wanchaiwarrior; how quiet has it gotten? I was under the impression that Australia was still building pretty strongly...?

If you don't mind me asking, what field are you in?

[The Beaver King]

Wanchaiwarrior, PomBstard, WeirdNeville; thank you for your responses, they have certainly answered some questions and provided me with some things to think on

PomBstard said:

I'm only guessing, but HVAC might not be a sought-after skill set right now, unless you've got something special on your CV, perhaps tunnel vent - we like building tunnels over here!

While I'm very much a Mech engineer, currently I'm in an Estimating Managers role. Couple that with CAD experience and having spent the last 5 years in offsite/prefabricated service manufacturing; I'm hoping I can fit myself into a role.

My offsite/modular experience is very niche (even in the UK), but I know there are a few big M&Es in Oz looking to get into it, so I'm looking to offer my services to one of them.

In your opinion, would there be a market for prefabricated pipework/multi-service modules in Oz? There seems to be a lot of companies doing modular building, but very few doing the services...

PomBstard said:

And that little medical centre being built up at Kawana, I worked on one of the plans for it about 7 years ago - its a big project.

Indeed It's a big headache as well

I'm hoping that the work we're doing on this will help me a bit when I apply for jobs.