Working & Living abroad

[flyingcloud]

Hello expats, quick question for a friend.

When moving abroad for work and charged with finding your own accomodation, how do your employers come up with a budget?

I imagine there is a formula. Number of people in household, wage the employed person is on and divided by the average rate for an average sized house appropriate to your needs.

Check tax situation carefully and also schooling costs. Company should also pay for the family to return to home country (at least) once a year.

Cost of living varies hugely do as much research as you can (do they do an orientation visit before hand so you can check stuff out first hand?)

TBH I very much doubt theres a magic formula its normally what they think they can get away with and how much they actually want the person to come out .

It's tends not to be a formula, but otherwise pretty much what Kreecher says. It should be based on the local cost for a decent house in an appropriate area.
That will vary depending on the country. What a native would expect may not be appropriate in eg. the Middle East/India/the Far East.
However they work it out is less important than ensuring it does not result in a diminution in your standard of living - and that includes commute/access to facilities etc as well as the actual property. The family really needs to check it out on a "look see" visit as some employers will just fob you off from afar to keep their costs down. What seems like a huge budget from the UK may seem woefully inadequate at destination.

Thanks all.

Yes, you are right about differences in budget. Friend doesn't want to take the piss, but equally doesn't want to end up living in a hovel.

out of interest, which country? I can advise about Oman, Thailand, central Switzerland and now Antwerp. There are MNers all over the place.