To leave Australia and move back to the UK

[nameisnotimportant]

We have a great life here in Aus. Great lifestyle and secure jobs with great friends.

However we miss family so much, especially since having kids. Life in the U.K. would be a lot more secure in terms of buying a house and being able to bring up our kids in one area.

Pros of moving back to the U.K.

1. We could afford to buy a decent sized house in a nice area with a low mortgage. In aus, we will have to rent forever because house prices are absolutely ridiculous and finding a three bedroom in the area we want, would be near impossible. We would also have to stay in an apartment which isn't ideal with children.
2. We would be near family, wouldn't miss all the events like birthdays, weddings. Would have help with childcare and could actually have a date night once in a while.
3. Our holidays wouldn't have to be spent visiting family and would save us a lot of money.

Cons

1. We have a great group of friends in Aus and don't really have this in the Uk, so would have to basically start again in terms of making friends.
2. We would have the uncertainty of having to find new jobs and risk not liking them etc.
3. The U.K. weather, more so how long winter is because we actually don't mind the rain and are kind of sick of living in the sun.

4 Healthcare is better in Aus, we have private health insurance and get quicker access to services as the health system is generally not as strained.

So what do you think we should do. Should we move or stay put ?

From your list, I would move in a heartbeat.

Wait until after Brexit then give it another 6 months to see what collapses first.

Family comes first for me, especially as they get older and maybe less able to travel. So that would be my consideration too, in addition to your list. So I would move back.

Youd be off your head to move back to the uk now

Come home. It's family first for me.

I think the UK weather is a pro, not a con. I couldn't cope with the Australian climate. I'm in Ireland & fortunately don't mind rain.

You know that you can get private healthcare in the UK. I have it here & if I moved back to the UK it would be top of my essentials list.

It doesn't sound like staying in Australia is viable long term because of the housing situation so whilst you have a nice life, it's based on renting not owning, which would worry me long term with having kids and approaching middle age (though you don't say how old you are I'm just assuming).

For me, family is ultimately more important than friends as well, especially once you have kids, they won't have their grandparents around forever.

It sounds like the better move is to go back, but I guess you'll need to think about the right time with their schooling and when you should move them (eg you've missed the boat for this September). If you end up with another year out there before moving then really make the most of that year and travel in that area, knowing you don't have to use up your holiday coming to the UK.

Hi OP, having moved around the world a few times I would definitely suggest you:
a) wait for the Brexit fallout to settle
b) try to secure at least 1 job prior to leaving, either through online interviews or 1 partner making the trip solo to secure a role.
c) alternatively can you not look for a different area in the city you live for a more affordable option?
d) the early years with kids are the hardest to be apart from loved ones, once they are teenagers it gets much easier.
e) finally, a trick that worked for us was to meet family halfway eg Thailand or Singapore - we made some great memories that way.
Good luck, it's always a hard decision where there us no right or wrong.

Are you in Sydney or something? Housing isn't hideous all over Oz.

Just addressing your points:

Pro 1 - Where are you looking to buy in Australia and UK, as I find it strange you can afford a decent sized property with low mortgage in UK, but can’t do the same in Australia? Not sure you’d get a mortgage in UK without employment, so you may end up renting a while too.

Pro 2 - We moved to Australia with no children, then had twins. Not having my family was tough (although they were here visiting when the children were born), but I was lucky as my parents (and later my brother) moved to Australia and we all live within a 5 - 10 minutes walk of each other. I feel a massive pull back to the UK because of my extended family and friends, but because my immediate family is here I am happy to stay in the (waaaaay too hot in summer) sun. Your family may not help with childcare/babysitting. You say you have close friends, can they not babysit on rare occasions so you can have a date night (find it strange they haven’t offered if they are close)?

Pro 3 - Don’t using your holidays for visiting the UK - holiday where you want to. When we first came out we holidayed everywhere except the UK. We still do a yearly trip, but it’s normally just a stop for a rest between places we want to visit (we usually buy a round the world ticket- cheaper to go three or four stops than ever before). We are happy for people to visit us in Australia, but plan it so that my husband doesn’t have to take the entire time off. So they’ll come for say a week, then we’ll book a trip to Gold Coast/Sunshine Coast where my husband will come for a long weekend then fly back to work, then we’ll stay there for rest of week, then back home for a week, then another trip elsewhere - Sydney/Melbourne etc - husband does long weekend then back to work, I stay with friends away, then back home. That way my husband doesn’t miss too much work and our friends/family get to see different parts of Australia.

Cons 1 - You’d miss your Australian friends, but I’m not sure how close/great they are if you aren’t comfortable enough to ask for one night of babysitting. You might pick up with old UK friends, you might make new ones - you won’t know until you move back.
Cons 2 - Get jobs before you move back. No point moving without a job lined up as any savings will be gone very quickly. You’ll also need employment to get a mortgage if you wish to buy a house.
Cons 3 - Australian health insurance is pretty good, but you a lot pay for it. You can also get private health insurance in the UK.

If you do decide to move back I would wait until after Brexit to see what happens to the economy and house prices etc (possibly nothing, but I’d still wait).

Remember the grass is not always greener (although I guess it is pretty green in the UK 😬)

Yeah man wait for Brexit tbh

U.K I reckon.

I would move back. I wouldn't wait for Brexit personally because there's always going to be something and at least you get more £ against Oz $ when uncertainty. You can get private health insurance here if you want better medical care. I'm in Simply Health and they have a 24 hr GP service now as part of the plan. Only costs me £35 for a family plan. There's more expensive health insurance obviously. Weather - well just book some holiday in to break up the winter.

Yes we are in Sydney where house prices are just crazy. We have a decent amount of savings which if we used as a deposit back home, would give us a 30-40% house deposit, whereas here it would be a 5-10% deposit which makes a big difference to the monthly repayments and length of the mortgage etc. We could move elsewhere in Aus but to be honest we would then be moving somewhere with no friends or family and I don't think I want to completely start all over again. Our friends are good and do the occasional babysit once in a while but family it would be more regular and my mum has offered to do a childcare day one day a week so it would reduce our childcare cost. I wish we could just ship all our friends back to the U.K.

I think family and housing are big factors here. Where in Aus are you living? I am guessing it's a big city, probably Sydney or Melbourne? House prices here are insane especially compare with the average annual salary. Where would you be returning to? Are the job prospects good there for your industry? I think you need to assess the availability of work as well as the cost of housing, as life would be pretty miserable if you were stuck in a rubbish job with few other available jobs to apply for. It's also worth bearing in mind that friends may move away/to other areas. Many people here end up moving further out to get a home at some point. We're renters in Sydney but are moving slightly further out to buy. What would you plan to do in retirement if you didn't own a home here? Would you have enough super to pay rent? I would also think about why you left the UK in the first place. Do those reasons still apply?

We did the opposite, returning to Aus to be closer to family after a very long stint in the UK. We ended up living in a different state to family in the end as there were better, more interesting work prospects. I wouldn't have done it if we had no prospects of ever owning a home though.

Wait till Brexit is well and truly done. (Which may be some time.)

We moved back to Aus last year from London and I don't regret it at all. We are 45 mins from Melbourne in one direction and 40 mins from my parents in the other (who live out in the country) and mortgage free.

In your shoes I would move home, as a pp said, after 6 months post Brexit to see exactly the shit storm it is or isn't.

So really what you are saying is Sydney or UK. There are plenty of other wonderful and mare affordable areas in Aus. I've been in Hobart 5 years and the quality of life (I appreciate this is a personal thing) is way better than UK.

Youd be off your head to move back to the uk now

This.

OP the pros outweigh the cons in your post.
UK isn't all that far from warm places in Europe. Oz is huge.

I emigrated to USA in my 20s (pre-internet and WhatsApp) it was fine for a while but after DC i realised how desperately i missed my family and my roots tbh.

25 years later my parents are on their way out and my dc are adults. I'm so thankful that my kids have had an exceptionally close relationship with my parents. Also that I've been here to help them through old age.

Are you sure you could get ALL the things you want in the same place? Eg Nice house for that money, in a nice area, near enough to family that they can help AND near a job?

Say for example you have $100,000 - at your 5-10% calc that's 1-2 million for a median price house in mid-nice suburbs Sydney, about right?
But that's about 55K GBP = 30-40% deposit? A nice house in a nice area of the uk for 150-180? Where would that be?
You'd be really restricted in where you could live. And it possibly wouldn't be an area with good property growth rates or with good schools? And what would the job pay local to that area, would you have to commute? If it takes the same amount of time to pay down the mortgage, what's the difference between getting paid 100k here and paying off 3000 a month vs getting paid 40k there and only being able to pay off 1200 a month? Still paying it for the next 25 years.

You need to look at ALL the numbers together, schooling, transport, the cost of moving back.

Now here's the big thing. If you look at all of this and say, I don't really care how the numbers pan out...... then you've answered your own question, it's not really about money for you so those items shouldn't be considered other that in absolute 'can we afford it' terms.

Have you considered buying a cheap rental and using negative gearing to get on the housing ladder while renting something more suitable for your family? Or getting a doer upper? (That's what we did, got a run down 3bed in the suburb next to the really high end one we wanted to live in).
Prices are down 8% this year so now is a really good time to pick something up that has passed in because it's not perfect.

Give it a year until we see what damage Brexit has done. On the one hand, house prices are expected to drop so you might be able to pick up a bargain. On the other hand, a lot of companies are leaving or downsizing the scale of operations here so getting a job might be trickier. We’ve put off and major financial decisions for the next year or so, until we can be fairly certain we still have jobs.

Pawmageddon has it spot on. Are you sure you are comparing like with like on the property prices eg looking at UK areas with job prospects as good as you have in Sydney? There are cheaper areas in UK but generally they are in economically struggling areas where there can be a huge shortage of jobs at all, let alone ones paying decent salaries.

I wouldn't touch the UK with a barge pole right now. We didn't even go back to visit this year. Last year the atmosphere was quite unpleasant and we couldnt wait to get out. We lived in London for 20 years and the UK for nearly 45 and it has palpably changed since we left 4 years ago.

Britain does not feel very nice at the moment.

More open hostility to all sorts and groups of people, and then internally between groups of people. You know at school there were bullies, the loud mouthed gobby ones or the up-theirselves sneery ones? Well that feels much more normal in public discourse.

Massive divides between those with money and those without, and then further up the scale with more/less money.

A welfare system which is destroying people’s lives.

A complete collapse of the manufacturing sector in some parts of the country (which will be exacerbated by Brexit), which has all sorts of knock on effects.

A terrible, terrible government with (I suspect) unsavoury influences.

I love this country but if you last lived here in eg the run up to the millennium or the olympics, it feels very different now and I suspect will take a generation to heal. (Although there is a counter argument that some people were massively alienated during what I perceive as the “good” times which has contributed this National mood).

But if family win it, then of course you can move back, but I’d wait and observe what happens with Brexit first.