To think the families on Wanted Down Under are a bit spoilt/delusional?

[Hatchinganegg]

Almost every episode involves a family with pretty average jobs living in your average 3 bedroom semi detached. They go to Australia and turn their noses up at massive houses because they don't have pools and walk in wardrobes. Or they're 10 minutes from the beach rather than right across the road

They never seem to want to start off a few rungs down from their eventual goal, it all has to happen right away.

They all want identikit houses too- those shiny kitchens and acres of cream carpet. I'd like to see one where the family was after something a little different personally!

Hadron - there's a lot of vitamin D deficiency in Australia too, because of the general slip slop slap campaign, and the scary adverts about melanoma. Also, it's really too hot a lot of the time to be out in the sun without huge amounts of SPF50+ sunscreen on.
My entire family were vit D deficient so we all take vit D supplements to counter this.

I get depressed here during summer because, for me, it's too fecking hot, and it's too muggy and I get a lot of migraines from the weather. I also suffer far more from hayfever here than in the UK. But I do know that the summer weather here works far better for some than others - I'm just not one of them.

My daughter (who has moved out to Australia, Melbourne) has been told that she can't buy a house unless she takes Australian citizenship

Thats not true though.

Funny thing is they are showing 'I escaped to the country ' on BBC1 now it's about the ppl who genuinely bought houses they saw on the programme. There was me thinking they didn't ever buy them but they did ! The Scottish Octogonal house is awful imho yuk!

Jam - just about managing (I think)

www.realestate.com.au/news/the-facts-about-foreign-buyers/
Definitely not true that you have to have Australian citizenship to buy a house, although there may be restrictions on getting a loan for it.

You learn something new everyday ThumbWitches

Thanks Thumb, I'm seeing her soon so I shall pass this info on. Although tbh she had been told this when she first got out there. She probably knows better now!

And I have seen a fair few episodes where couples find they would be far better off and find their vastly over-inflated tiny UK 3 bed will buy them a brand new modern spacious house with a pool in NZ.

So have I and they are literally hours and hours away from the cities. Even after living there I find it hard to get to grips with the vastness of the country or how far away from things it is possible to live. Every time I've flown the Melbourne and the announcement comes that we are in Australian airspace somebody starts getting out their bags from the overhead locker. It's five more hours and that's in a plane.

I have 2 school friends who emigrated to NZ and a few more in Australia and the States they all really enjoy their new lifestyle,on has retired at 50 and regularly travel to Hawaii.Another has loads of sporty hobbies .For most of them the did earn more than the UK and house prices are a lot cheaper if you aren't in the city.

Its said in the UK that there is a serious vitamin D deficiency I knew NO ONE in the UK with Vit d deficiency in the whole 32yr I loved there. I know lots of people here with it (me included) because on some days you can't even hang your washing out without getting sunburnt (I speak from experience during my early days here)

My daughter (who has moved out to Australia, Melbourne) has been told that she can't buy a house unless she takes Australian citizenship As I detailed below, there are no restrictions from the Aus Gov, you need to find an institute willing to take you on. And then you need to have reviews etc.

Different - the vit D deficiency in the UK is definitely on the rise. Doctors are even seeing examples of rickets again. www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/23/poorer-children-disproportionately-need-hospital-treatment

Part of this is due to the UK also advocating constant use of sunscreen, which isn't quite as important in the UK as it is in Australia, and partly due to children not being outdoors as much as they used to.

It's definitely on the rise there though.

ThumbWitchesAbroad Wow, I wasn't aware of that!

It’s hard to reconcile images of a country with reality sometimes. We all have images of particular countries which are 2 dimensional until you visit. I remember first time in the USA being a shock despite being raised on a diet of US shows!
Agree about the scale and geography of Aus not being remotely understood by Brits. Australia is the size of the continental USA but with only 25 million people. There are cheap (and nice) options for living outside the main cities but these are very seldom explored on WDU. Because Australia is all beaches,right ?many people in Aus live in lovely towns surrounded by rolling green countryside hundreds of miles from the coast. Yet there’s an obsession with beach and, often, Sydney. A whole continent to go at really!

You're so right, juliesaway, I saw a WDU a few years ago, can't remember what year, but the newbies moved to a regional town and lived in a lovely single-storey rambling house on a fair plot of land, lots of native bush and trees. It was lovely.

I'd like to see them do one where they look at towns like Ballarat or Bendigo, regional towns, lively, well supported with infrastructure, and on the V line for the Melbs for commuters.

The people on these shows are for the most part delusional, but some of the sentiments on this thread are pretty backwards too.

It's not a zero sum game - I lived in London for years and loved it, I still think it is one of the greatest cities in the world and would love to live there again. I returned home to Auckland NZ and love it - yes we do have an "outdoors" lifestyle, it's 30 degrees today and we've been in the pool all day. And no we are not uneducated as one pp said - DH and I are both lawyers and work much longer hours regularly than we did in London (I fondly remember swanning in at 9.30...)

Sadly one of the two things both cities have in common are the astronomical housing prices which of course affects everyone's standard of living.

I agree that there are loads of great cities and towns that aren't the capitals.
That said over 80% of australia lives within 50km of the coastline. So comparatively few people live hundreds of k's inland.
You can live on the coast and not be in Brisbane/Sydney/Perth though. (I do ). As I said earlier you can get amazing houses in towns with a reasonable job market and good standard of living for pretty cheap. My BIL, his wife and 2 kids have all just moved into a lovely character home with a pool for $250k. Not bad at all. They're nowhere near the capital though.

Another thing: I love pools but I'd never personally want one. It gets old pretty quick and they can cost thousands to maintain year upon year. I have friends and family with pools and honestly it's a turn off for me if I'm ever visiting a home. I know how much work and money they take to maintain and after a few weekends of using it it becomes much like anything else once the shine wears off...

Yanbu. They want to be seen to be living the dream when they move. They want their friends and family to be jealous of their new life. In a lot of the episodes, it appears to be a badly thought out idea with no previous research done.

I had some great advice from a seasoned traveller once who had lived in lots of different places: "you take yourself with you". It's so true (and I speak as someone who has upped and moved overseas - not Australia though). You still have deal with life and moving doesn't make all your problems disappear.

People with common conditions health conditions or pain find an improvement in their health in sunnier weather

My parents moved to Oz a while back. She had been just about crippled and in constant pain in the UK cold, damp winters. She's much better in the Oz climate. Definitely worth it just for that.

I can't cope with the rational that they 'will spend more family time together'. How? Work hours are often longer and they will still need to cook, clean, wash clothes, shop etc.

I find this this hard as my lovely SIL agreed to a move as her DH promised her 'more family time'. Lo and behold, he works longer hours, travels more for work and is still a lazy lump who doesn't bother spending time with his wife and kids.

Lived in Australia 20 years as a permanent resident before getting citizenship. Nothing changed. Still bought a house, was entitled to benefits if necessary.

Weather here isn't relentless. It's not all summer. We still have autumn, winter and spring
I really like the beach on days it reaches 40, nothing nicer than the water then. Chuck a hat on, bring an umbrella and an esky. Bliss.

Hayfever is worse depending on which state you live in. I was in Europe during spring a few years ago and my hayfever was much worse. I wanted to claw my face off.

I do miss walks in the UK, the scenery. The health system scares the living daylights out of me there though, and is a major factor in never moving back. Here I can access a doctor anytime, see any specialist I want, go to a private hospital a&e under my health cover if I don't want to go public/wait (though the children's public hospital's are brilliant).

I have a 5 bedroom house with a pool, 7kms from the city. So not doing too bad out here

FFS today's lot. Don't like East London anymore, high crime rate etc, so MUST go to Australia. I just don't understand the thinking, surely Cornwall or coastal Kent or any other lovely area of the UK would be just as good?

Agreed user And she is walking around judging carpet colour and soft furnishings. I don't think that is what they have been sent to Australia for somehow

And why do they want a 4 bedroom property when they have 1 child?

And is a delivery driver a sought after occupation?