Newbie saying hi. Loads of questions!!

[millymoo]

Hi there

Have been "lurking" on this site for last couple of days and trying to digest all the extremely useful information listed here.

We are in very early stages of thinking about a move down under.

Our main priority is trying to establish what kind of income my husband would be able to earn in Austrailia. His job is in demand and having completed a points test we score at least 130 points The thing is on the list of in demand jobs the nearest one to my husbands occupation is Welder. He does welding as part of his job but he is much more specialised in that area. Have gone on a couple of the links listed on the forum and he has posted is resume on CareerOne so we are hoping someone will come back to us soon.

Apart from that I have read somewhere that you should allow £10K to relocate to Oz - presumably this includes your agents fees, shipping over belongings and flights etc?

We are thinking of Western Austrailia but need to be within 45 min commute of industrial areas. Would we be able to find a family orientated area where we could afford a house (region of £210k) that has decent schools? Anyone recommend some areas for me??

Anyone recommend a couple of reputable agents? Can I have a ballpart figure of cost on a total relocation package?

I will leave it there for now as I don't want to go on too much. Will be back with lots more questions but if anyone can help with any of the above it is much appreciated.

Many thanks


Lisa

[kaz101]

Hi Lisa,

Welcome to the forum.

On the job forums most employer and agencies are looking with people who already have a visa and so are allowed to work here. So don't be surprised if you either get asked that or you don't get many replies because of it.

With 130 points are you thinking about going down the skilled independent visa route or the sponsored visa route? I ask because your husband has submitted his CV to Careerone - or is that just to gauge the market?

It probably cost us more to relocate than 10,000 GBP. It depends on what you are shipping (we had a 40ft container and paid around 6,000 GBP) we had full agency service for the visa (around 3,000 GBP from memory) plus visa application fees, medical fees, flights, extra for getting the car into Oz and transported to us. We also had an agent to go through our finances , merge our pensions in the the UK and then move them over to Oz which
cost several thousand as well.

There are property links in the "PLEASE READ...." post to give you an idea of the areas and prices (which you may have seen already). There is also a post that mentions Perth in the title if you do a search.

I'm not in Perth so I can't recommend any areas.

The ballpark figure for relocation really depends on what you require. If you look through some posts you'll see the varying prices that people paid.

If you're talking migration agents there are several recommendations made by people throughout posts - some of them I remember are Emigration Group (our agents), George Lombard (Dollys agent), and Alan Collett and Liana Allan are members of this forum.

Regards,
Karen

[millymoo]

Originally Posted by kaz101

Hi Lisa,

Welcome to the forum.

With 130 points are you thinking about going down the skilled independent visa route or the sponsored visa route? I ask because your husband has submitted his CV to Careerone - or is that just to gauge the market?

Hi Karen

Yes we are just trying to establish the income he could earn but having difficulty! We have sent his cv to a few different companies explaining that we are thinking of emigrating and could they give us an idea of salary based on his experience. Nobody has come back to us yet

Its frustrating as we just want to get on to the next step and then if we get favourable information move onto the next step

[kaz101]

Hi Lisa,

You may do better ringing the agencies since as several people have pointed out they don't always get a response from emails. I'm not sure why not but I sent out a load of emails enquiring about potential investment properties about a week ago, and only got replies from about 50% of them. That is from real estate agents I know are on the net regularly and we want to buy what they are selling!

Ringing Oz doesn't have to be expensive since you can use international call cards or a program like Skype.

Regards,
Karen