Moving overseas

[jacob]

@chenda - It's listed because it's as far south as Australians can go before running out of land lest they go to NZ---not because it's particularly good.

[chenda]

@jacob, right, although that 4 degree map which was circulating gave it a reassuring green colour.

[thrifty++]

I feel like Australia is going to be massively affected by climate change. There has again been some nasty bush fires raging recently.

One of the reasons I haven't wanted to move there is that I can't handle the heat. I used to like visiting Australia but when I have visited in the last few years I have found the heat just way too intense. 41 degrees and high humidity etc. Some people like that heat, but personally its just way too much. I think on one day Sydney got to 47 degrees and high humidity and the road was melting.

Australia of the future makes me think of Mad Max.

[chenda]

Yes Australia is definitely not where I'd want to be long term. It faces huge national security challenges as well. Too few people defending far too much land. The long feared 'invasion from the north' has already begun.

[thrifty++]

@chenda - highly topical item in the news today https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/a ... d=12290434

[Solvent]

The 'invasion from the north' has begun? Wow. I bet there's a real strong argument behind that. Or a pissweak definition of 'invasion'?

Also, I have trouble believing that people's assessments of where to live based on climate change are quite so serious. Yeah, I know climate change is happening, and living in Australia will become more challenging. But citing projections of what will happen in 2100 misses the mark for me. It's not that I don't care, but I'll be long dead by 2100. My kids will probably be getting close to their ends as well. I'm not basing my choice of where to live right now on projections of 2100.

[chenda]

@thrifty++ interesting to read

@solvent - It was a historic term which has been used to reflect long standing national security concerns in Australia going back to WW2. Its tiny population of a few million people left it almost defenceless in the face of Japanese encroachment. 'Populate or perish' was the slogan after WW2, when it desperately sought to boost its population to a level where is could defend itself. People in Britain were given incentives to migrate out there. 200 million Indonesians to the north in a unstable dictatorship was always a concern. Not bashing Indonesia, its just a geo-political reality which Australia has had to live with. Per-capita, Australia is one of the worlds biggest defence spenders. And yes, there was also an openly racial policy to 'Keep Australia white' which feed into these fears. Don't know if you live there so maybe you already are aware of this history. But anyway, what I was referring to was more climate change refugees heading south and the long term threats of climate change to Australia, which is likely to be a ever growing issue.

[MikeBalst1]

I consider that expenses are always reducing along with income. If in some of the countries it seems to you that the prices for all are very attractive, I can assure you that the income of the inhabitants of this country is also quite low) Of course, this is all figurative, but the principle is the same everywhere

[thrifty++]

@mikebalst - I am not sure I agree with you. It doesn't seem to me like incomes and prices are always in sync. The focus point is affordability - income vs cost of living. Places of low affordability have incomes out of kilter with expenses, like New Zealand, where incomes are moderate and cost of living is very high. Then there are places with high income and low costs of living like USA.

[chenda]

I was just reading of a Tasmanian survey which suggested the biggest reason for internal migration to Tasmania were Australians looking for a cooler climate. Although it hasn't escaped the recent inferno.

New Zealand has just banned foreigners buying property. Billionaires from Silcon valley and the like have apparently been snapping up estates in the South Island as a refuge in an unstable world. (I think Australians are exempt though)

NZ does give citizenship if one parent was a citizen at the time of your birth, although not grandparents.

[cimorene12]

Then there are places with high income and low costs of living like USA.

Can you discuss your perception of the US as having high income and low costs of living? What is that determination based on? If you were to go to the US, what sort of job would you be looking at (sector, I don't need to know exact details) and would you be living in the more affordable areas of Middle America or the very pricy coastal regions?

[chenda]

Maybe the one big disadvantage for NZ as a refuge is the risk of natural disasters. Volcanoes, earthquakes, Tsunami...its not great in that sense.

[thrifty++]

@cimorene - I come across statistical data on a regular basis regarding cost of living and incomes in USA which show how significantly more affordable it is. But I don't have them at my fingertips right now. But as one at example look at numbeo rankings of cities in the world by purchasing power - cost of living vs income. Every single one of the top 20 cities in the world (except one in Switzerland) is in the USA - having the highest income against living costs https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings.jsp

On an anecdotal type basis I regularly come across content on personal finance forums, blogs and podcasts hearing people talking incomes which are just impossible to imagine here, for professionals. And people buying houses with prices which don't exist in NZ.

I have browsed housing on Zillow. Even in the most expensive cities, like NYC and Los Angeles and can see homes cheaper than would be possible here. Averages are dragged up in those cities by immensely luxurious penthouse apartments and mansions. There do seem to be some ordinary homes for ordinary people. In NZ ordinary homes are for millionaires. I haven't bothered to look at San Fran to be honest.

Then I look at other cities in USa and the cost of buying property is just another world - Chicago, dallas, Austin, Cincinnati, Cleveland, pittsburg, New Orleans, Atlanta. Beautiful houses for like 250k. Its unbelievable. And then its a whole other level of amazement if I look at small cities or places like Detroit or Las Vegas. Its simply like another world in USA with how much cheaper it is and how high the pay is.

You can contrast this with NZ which has the most unaffordable housing in the developed world. And has done for the last three years. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped ... 8fZxi6yCp8. From the economist https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/20 ... omist.html. These infographics - while showing how NZ is the most unaffordable country in the world - also show how affordable USA is in comparison to NZ and other countries.

Having been to NZ you must also be familiar how poor the quality of the housing is also compared to USA. While being excessively expensive you are also getting housing which often has some or all of these features: serious weathertightness/leaky building issues; a complete lack of insulation; cold and damp; cheap styling, small in size, cheap fixtures and fittings and central heating is almost unheard of.

[Jean]

Col is very dépendant on what matters to you. My col would bé higher in the USA than in switzerland.

[cimorene12]

@cimorene - I come across statistical data on a regular basis regarding cost of living and incomes in USA which show how significantly more affordable it is. But I don't have them at my fingertips right now. But as one at example look at numbeo rankings of cities in the world by purchasing power - cost of living vs income. Every single one of the top 20 cities in the world (except one in Switzerland) is in the USA - having the highest income against living costs https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings.jsp

I looked at the Numbeo rankings. There are some common issues with housing, as you say. Could you show me what you're using to generate the ratio of cost of living vs. income in the US vs NZ? I suppose this is a case of the grass always being greener, but NZ to me is a much happier place than the US. Do you understand what our healthcare system is like?
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/a-tal ... tists.html
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... here-to-go
Yes, the NZ housing costs are shocking, but I expect the legislation around it to fix the fact that a normal NZ salary isn't enough for house ownership eventually. It's a bit of a pain for me as an American, but I could buy property in NZ under the right circumstances and after jumping through the right legal hoops.

I think a key part of me finding NZ so affordable was that I was happily earning USD while living in NZ. Remember to convert house prices in the US from USD to NZD when you're looking at how relatively cheap they are. Sure, it's cheaper to buy a house in Austin than most parts of Auckland. But there are so many other factors that go into quality of life, like having a reasonable assurance that if you get into an accident and go to A&E, you're going to receive good care.

If you have citizenship in another country and you seriously want to leave NZ, then go ahead and move to the other country. As Ramit Sethi is fond of saying: The best time to plant a tree was a year ago. The second best time is today.