Hi,
My wife and I, along with our two young kids, are hoping to move to Melbourne for a couple of years later in the year.

The job i am applying for has a starting salary of $58,000.

Can anyone help provide advice as to how this compares to UK salaries in terms of buying power.
We want to ensure that we won't be much worse off by making the move.

Any advice on cost of living would be greatly received.

Cheers

John

G'day

You do not indicate if your wife will be working, and if so, how much she will be earning.

You do not give us much of a hint about the lifestyle you are looking to lead. That make it VERY hard to make any accurate assessments about your likely cost of living.

An annual salary of $58K will attact tax of $13,620 leaving you $44,380 or $3,698/month or $853/week. This is not a particularly good income. The scale of estimated living costs used by the WestPac bank estimates the cost of running a "typical" house for 2 adults and 2 children at $2,078 per month. This estimate does not include rent costs. Depending on where you live, this could be $1,000-2,000/month.

I am a mortgage broker and I work for many banks. I can say that a couple in your position would find it difficult to obtain a mortgage to buy a property unless you have a substantial deposit. Assuming you have no other debts or crdit cards, you might be able to borrow in the $150K - $200K range. If you want to get a loan within a year of being here, you will probably need a deposit over $200K. Otherwise you will be renting for a while. Renting is not ncessarily a bad thing and the cost of renting is substantially less than the cost of buying a property.

As you are a 457 visa holder, you may have to provide your own additional health insurance or pay for your childrens education. If you are liable for these costs, that would reduce yor maximum loan size substantially. Also you will be ineligible for a government assistance like Family Tax Benefit (family allowance).

I did not want to give you such a negative sounding response to your post. Coming to Aust in a great dream to have and for many people it really turns out well. Some people come here and struggle for a few years but get through it, some get very disheartened and go back having not only lost a dream, but having lost a few years in which they could have improved their own lives and situation in the UK.

When you get here you are likely to struggle, do you know yourself well enough to know which way it will turn out for you?

Cheers
Bob in Bull Creek

That's got to be a useful eye opener for a lot of people Bob and as you say it's very hard to compar e like for like when you don't know what someone is currently earning or living on. I'm just mindful that a lot of people here are surviving (just) on that sort of salary and are faced with the situation that the equivalent of $1,000 month would just about rent you a spare room in someone's house. So it could be a choice of struggling in the freezing cold or struggling in the sunshine.

What sort of salary would you need for it to be worth your effort moving to Melbourne. I hope to get a salary of $100,000 with my wife also working as a teacher, don't know how much a teacher earns in melbourne yet. I want to rent until i know where I want to buy, about 6-12 months. I want to spend approx $500,000 on a house to the east of the city, no mortage. I have 3 kid 4,7 and 10. What sort of life style would I have??

A very good one ! Trust me - on $100k your will be very comfortable providing you don't get too extravagant. I live in sydney earning $75k per year with 1 child, 2 cars and a $300k mortgage. Wife doesn't work. We live comfortably without being extravagant.

Thanks Colin. I want to make sure that i will not be taking a backward step. If I can aford a good "lifestyle" it will mean I can concentrate on finding my feet and settling without family around us while living the dream!

Hi jsc77,

My wife and i are in a similar position as you. The average salary in Australia is about 55k. Recent news over here (channel 7) has been running reports on housing affordablity. We came over in Nov 2006, my wifes salary is approx. 53k.

My wifes a Aus Cit and I'm a permenant resident. We have two toddlers, I'm a stay at home dad until 2009. Our house has not sold in the Uk and we have no hope of securing a large enough mortgage. The system as bullcreek can testify is slightly differnt over here. We can only manage to secure approx. 150K; so have to wait for the Uk house to sell.

We have accepted that our life is on hold at the moment, our cash burn was high initially- due to car buying etc. I suppose you have to be realistic and plan for future events. I'm currently studying at night school to bolster my british education with an aussie one. There is high employment, so one option is to put ids into childcare. We've decided aginst this until we have settled properly in our own house.

The cost of living has become more expensive due to the decade of drought and recent floods. Housing boom and rental demands have also seen a rise in cost.

would I move back to the UK- No!

Good luck for the future