harley
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
The deal breaker for me is the quarantine requirement for dogs. I've always wanted to live there, but we've always had dogs. Maybe in 14-18 years when these last 3 are gone.
The Australian visa is only for 4 years, but you can reapply for a renewal. Unless your financial circumstances change substantially you would probably be assured of renewal.
However, the deal breaker for a lot of foreigners, might be the locations you would have to live in. NSW and ACT are out which means no Sydney, so you would have the option of burning to a crisp in Victoria where the bushfires are currently raging or you could live in Queensland where half the state is under water. Not sure many foreigners could handle the isolation of NT/Tas/WA and SA is probably too boring.
Quarantine is very strict in Oz because we are an island.
The Australian visa is only for 4 years, but you can reapply for a renewal. Unless your financial circumstances change substantially you would probably be assured of renewal.
However, the deal breaker for a lot of foreigners, might be the locations you would have to live in. NSW and ACT are out which means no Sydney, so you would have the option of burning to a crisp in Victoria where the bushfires are currently raging or you could live in Queensland where half the state is under water. Not sure many foreigners could handle the isolation of NT/Tas/WA and SA is probably too boring.
Quarantine is very strict in Oz because we are an island.
Well actually the Australian visa does allow you and your spouse to work up to 20 hours per week at the max.
Not sure that I agree with the Bateman's Bay comment. What is there to do there? I would think that one could easily die of boredom if they stayed there too long. A few years ago we drove from Nowra down past Merimbula, and whilst we found some nice towns I didn't see too much to do in any of these places. I am surprised that the rents in the ACT are the highest in Australia, as I thought Darwin would be a lot higher. However I guess for both locations it would depend on what suburbs you are talking about.
I guess effective March 16th, I am an Ex ERer
...but I kind of worry about our kids schooling (boys 9 and 11) for that year. There is a private school there that our friends kids go to, so that may be an option but it is 6k per year per kid so it is a bit expensive sounding to me. Both are doing really well at their schools in Texas, and I worry about jerking them out. But their spanish would really improve!
Another note: I got a call out of the blue today and was offered a 2 year job in Saudi Arabia. I got nothing going and the salary/perks are good so I will be leaving the middle of next month. I have not even packed for my Reno vacation that starts tomorrow.
Don't know if I will be able to connect to here while I am there but I will be going on business trips to UAE, India, Bahrain, Greece and Oman. So if anyone is interested in those areas let me know. I will inquire when I am in country if they have a retirement visa program through the expats.
I guess effective March 16th, I am an Ex ERer.
Deal breaker (from the link):
What does this visa let me do?
live in Australia for four (4) years
Early Retirees are shut out of many Retirement visa opportunities because they usually do not yet have a pension.
This is one reason that, even though I enjoyed living in Colombia, retirement there was not an option for me. There were workarounds but they were also difficult (spend $200,000 on a property, invest $100,000 with an immigration-approved business plan, get married to a Colombiana, pledge that you are permanently committed to a Colombiana in a non-marital relationship).
I think it is important to make this distinction among Retirement Visas.
Some visas require an income but that income can be shown to come from investments, so I would not put them into the "government pension required" category but somewhere in-between depending on the details.
And with experience I can state that: You really don't "live" in a place until you have some kind of permanent visa. Border runs and temporary visas are simply not the same thing. Even a Retirement Visa which must be renewed from scratch each year (as in Thailand) is not really all the way there, in my opinion.
I also had a retirement visa in Malaysia. I gave that up, also, but quite simple if I ever wanted to get it back. The US$50,000 Malaysian bank deposit that was required to deposit was needed to buy my house. If I ever wanted to return to Malaysia, I would opt for the pension scheme rather than the bank deposit. Malaysia was wonderful, but there were aspects of living there that did not appeal to me. Glad to share what they were if you ever ask.