How to arrive and

Buying a home in Australia

Immigrants arriving in Australia must get special permission to buy real estate. Only Australian citizens, those with Australian permanent residency and New Zealand citizens can buy property in Australia without permission from the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). As an immigrant without permanent residency, if you are given permission to buy a house or piece of land, there will be a number of conditions that you have to fulfil.

Buying a home is one of the largest purchases you're likely to make after settling in Australia. Like anywhere else, it can also be one of your best long-term investments, provided that you get it right. This means doing your homework and making sure that any property bought is the right one in terms of price, location, value, size and lifestyle. Don’t be too hasty to make this commitment until you are completely comfortable with the Australian way of doings things and are very familiar with the local community.
If you can't find the home that you are wanting to call ‘home’ in the long-term, you could consider purchasing a bare block of land and having your perfect home built for you. If you decide to build your own home, you will need to discuss your plans with architects, builders and local officialdom. Preferably have licensed building contractors carry out all building and related work. There are a number of alternatives to choose from when considering building your own home in Australia. These range from ‘House and Land’ packages to ‘custom-built’ homes.
There are two main ways to buy a property in Australia: by private sale or by auction. Buying by private sale means you buy the property at the advertised price or a negotiated price with the vendor, the latter usually done through the vendor’s estate agent. The negotiation continues until both parties agree on an acceptable price.
Auction is another common way of selling a property in Australia. It depends largely on the area and the type of property as to whether sale by auction is the preferred method of sale. House auctions are particularly common in inner city Sydney and Melbourne, but less so in suburban, regional or rural areas of Australia.
The auction method is a good way for a vendor to test the property market for buyer demand. Be warned that if you’re unfamiliar with auctions in general, that it can be an emotionally charged and fast-moving atmosphere. People can easily pay over the odds for a property before they realise that’s what has happened. All legal documents relating to the sale are available for inspection before the auction and contracts of sale can be signed and exchanged on the day of the auction. You have to know your limit AND stick to it!

Australian homes – the practical issues

There is a wide range of housing types and styles available, especially in some of Australia's larger cities and their suburbs. House architecture is based on European and American styles but many have a distinctly local Australian flavour, reflecting the climate and geography. A combination of timber and brick dwellings provides character and individuality in most communities.

Newer properties are almost always equipped with air-conditioning. Electric fans are standard in all forms of accommodation in the northern states. In the southern states many houses have a fireplace or a central heating system (usually gas). Such facilities are not required in the north due to the tropical climate.

In the cities and most country areas, electricity and piped gas are used for heating and cooking. Wood, coal and coke are still used in the more rural regions of Australia. Heating oil is widely used for heating in the colder areas.

All properties in the urban areas have access to a clean, piped water supply. In the country districts, many homes have 'tank water', a rainwater catchment system whereby water is caught and filtered for drinking.
Certain parts of Queensland do not allow tiled roofing, but the local law requires sheet metal roofing. The reason for this is that tiles cause more damage should a cyclone pass through the area. All the local housing laws exist for a reason.

You can begin your quest for a new home (permanent or temporary) by visiting this webpage which serves as the starting point that lists property agents websites in Australia:

http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/Oceania/Australia/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate

Some recommended websites are:

Domain

http://www.domain.com.au
McGrath

www.mcgrath.com.au

LJ Hooker

www.ljhooker.com.au

These should give you an overall idea of what price levels are.

- Chapter 6 -
What do Things Cost?
What is "affordable"?
Doing direct comparisons of price levels in any country is really an exercise of little value. Consumer goods in Cuba are expensive to Cubans, but the same items in Japan (at a higher price in any currency) are cheap to the Japanese. How can this be? What we can afford to pay for goods is a function of what we earn. What we can spend is after tax has been deducted and other essential needs have been paid for. In a country like Australia you don't spend as much money on healthcare and safety as in other countries. Those items are already included in the taxes paid. Taxes can be high in Australia, but that is slowly changing.
So how do we make a meaningful comparison? The only item everyone worldwide has the same amount of, is time. Consider "time" to be a universal currency. Thus a good measure of affordability is how long it will take you to earn the same item. (The fact that items vary in quality and need replacing more often in some countries will be ignored for now). Calculations for your doing the same job in Australia is obviously necessary to conduct a meaningful review, so see the chapter on employment.
Going down to your local hamburger outlet in Sydney or Melbourne and having a meal comes to, for simplicity sake, A$4. That is less than half an hour's net income. For someone from Madagascar, that meal is almost the equivalent of a week of working. The Briton will tell you the meal is affordable (or even cheap) whilst the person from Madagascar couldn't disagree more. The same meal in Madagascar costs the equivalent of A$1, but the Madagascan person never buys it because…it's unaffordable. Get it? Affordability is about how long it takes you to earn after tax what you want (or need) in the area that you spend it.
It is why tourists from around the world find Western Europe an expensive place to visit, because they don't earn their income there. As an outsider looking in, another economy's price levels will always look disjointed. It is only when you're earning your keep in that economy that it will make more sense to you. Keep this measure of affordability in mind when evaluating prices. If you're able to calculate your own earning power doing a comparable job in Australia, then great. Words of warning though, just don't count on earning that kind of money from day one in Australia.
INSIDER INFO: Prices anywhere are what they are because that is what people can afford to pay.

Shopping facilities in Australia
After accommodation and transport, the next biggest expenditure item is food. So we will spend some time on this topic first. The cost of goods in Australia varies depending on where you live and where you shop. Away from Sydney or Melbourne and other major cities most things are cheaper. Within the same town or city you will have a few competing food retailers, all selling essentially the same items, but at different prices. What differentiates them is breadth of product choice, width of aisles, location, cleanliness, service, freshness, parking, etc. Finding a grocery store that suits your needs is a personal thing, best done by visiting all the choices available to you.
Most suburbs or residential areas have their own little high street which usually has a shop that retails foodstuffs, but has a very limited range at slightly higher prices than the larger players. These shops provide service and convenience, especially for things needed on the way home, like milk, chocolate and lottery tickets. Many of these stores are franchised or are supplied by similar wholesalers.
Shops in Australia cater for all tastes and there are numerous supermarkets offering the widest possible range of goods. Outside of the city centres shopping is often concentrated in suburban shopping malls. The majority of these malls can cater for the needs of any shopper. There are also several large department stores in Australia. Melbourne is able claim one of the largest department stores in the southern hemisphere called Myer (www.mver.com.au). In Sydney, the market-leading department store is David Jones (www.davidjones.com.au) which has three outlets dotted around the city centre.
Other department stores include Grace Bros (www.gracebros.com.au) and K-Mart, a discount chain. All department stores provide a full range of products, from clothing to household goods to electronics. International retailers like Toys ‘R’ Us can be found in the main cities. The bookstore chains are Collins (http://www.collinsbooks.com.au/), Dymocks (http://www.dymocks.com.au/) and Angus & Robertson (www.angusrobertson.com.au).