Immigrating to the UK

Surv0 said:
Property market is kak atm.. was hoping for a quick sale, but coming on 2 months and not an offer. Hopefully in the new year. Everywhere is bad I believe.. Need to sell end of Jan to get the transfer before we want to leave. Going to be our startup capital. Holding thumbs for Jan.
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Damn! Hope you have some good luck. The market is extremely bad. We have 4 houses in our street for sale for longer than nine months now. 2 have been rented out, but are still in the market. I do not think people are interested in buying properties while there will be a clause in the Constitution and laws that will allow expropriation without compensation. Property ownership for now means nothing.
 
Surv0 said:
Property market is kak atm.. was hoping for a quick sale, but coming on 2 months and not an offer. Hopefully in the new year. Everywhere is bad I believe.. Need to sell end of Jan to get the transfer before we want to leave. Going to be our startup capital. Holding thumbs for Jan.
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I see this too.

Fortunately for us, our tenant has been renting from us for 5 years now and made a home for themselves and want to buy. We have about R350k in equity in the property which will be used as savings if we immigrate.

We have more than R1.2m in equity in our current home even if we sell at below current market value. Rental income would also be more than our current bond if we do decide to rent it out.
 
A couple of days into her trip and besides for the coldness, she really likes it there. Been doing mostly tourist stuff for now. She will be visiting some family in Croydon next week.

Only used Uber once to get from the airport to the hotel as it was just more convenient. That was quite expensive at R980 for the trip. She has found the public transport very efficient and only been using the bus and tube since then. She does get some vertigo when going down the escalators at the tube stations.

Looks like our decision has been made and she will be moving there permanently in the new year to look for work while I make arrangements this side to relocate the rest of our family and tie up loose ends.

Should be an interesting and exciting 2019 for us.
 
signates said:
A couple of days into her trip and besides for the coldness, she really likes it there. Been doing mostly tourist stuff for now. She will be visiting some family in Croydon next week.

Only used Uber once to get from the airport to the hotel as it was just more convenient. That was quite expensive at R980 for the trip. She has found the public transport very efficient and only been using the bus and tube since then. She does get some vertigo when going down the escalators at the tube stations.

Looks like our decision has been made and she will be moving there permanently in the new year to look for work while I make arrangements this side to relocate the rest of our family and tie up loose ends.

Should be an interesting and exciting 2019 for us.
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The escalator at the Angel tube by any chance? Quite a trip!
 
cguy said:
The escalator at the Angel tube by any chance? Quite a trip!
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No idea which one in particular or if its all of them that's she's been on. She's always had an issue with escalators and the tube seems to have magnified it.

She's staying in Finsbury, not far from the Emirates stadium and mostly used the Victoria line so far.
 
signates said:
Looks like our decision has been made and she will be moving there permanently in the new year to look for work while I make arrangements this side to relocate the rest of our family and tie up loose ends.
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Good luck.

Before you know it winter still soon be over. Storm Deirdre is here now, lots of snow up in Scotland.
 
signates said:
No idea which one in particular or if its all of them that's she's been on. She's always had an issue with escalators and the tube seems to have magnified it.

She's staying in Finsbury, not far from the Emirates stadium and mostly used the Victoria line so far.
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She's probably using the one at Finsbury Park station then. Angel is/was the longest escalator in Europe, maybe even the world at a stage.

Glad you guys have started making the move a reality. The biggest step, I think, is just getting over all the mental hurdles and saying "Ok, we're actually doing this". The wife and I were in a similar position when we left: she went over first, and I followed 6 months later after tying up all the ends in SA.

Noticed the Uber comment: once you're working and earning £, it's important to stop converting all the time, or you'll slowly start to go crazy!
 
Definitely will not be doing the conversion all the time. I do think the Uber price is more than a similar trip would be here. Its about 40km from Heathrow to their hotel and cost £45. From Somerset West to Cape Town City centre is nearly 50km and cost only R450, half per km here.

Her sister went with her but was on a different flight and landed at Heathrow. When my wife landed at Gatwick she took the bus to Heathrow and met up with her there and they took an Uber from Heathrow to Finsbury.

Next up is looking into where to live. Not exactly sure yet but we initially will only need a 1 bedroom flat for her but when the family moves over we will need a minimum of 2 bedrooms, preferably 3 as we have 2 children aged 8 and 5. Budget would be about £1 000 to £1 200 per month for rent.

Open to suggestions on areas to look at.
 
Dave said:
Won’t that depend where the job is?

Having said that, try not stay in London, you get far more for your money.
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It would. She's currently in the asset management and investment industry as a Fund Accounting Manager so looking at the banking industry like HSBC, JPMorgan, etc.

We don't mind living further out of London. She will be going over alone without a job offer and will be looking for work there. This will only be at the end of March next year at the earliest as she has to give 3 month notice at her current employer.
 
signates said:
It would. She's currently in the asset management and investment industry as a Fund Accounting Manager so looking at the banking industry like HSBC, JPMorgan, etc.

We don't mind living further out of London. She will be going over alone without a job offer and will be looking for work there. This will only be at the end of March next year at the earliest as she has to give 3 month notice at her current employer.
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You’ll probably need to be in reasonable commuting distance of the city then, @zippy should be able to give some ideas.
 
Dave said:
Won’t that depend where the job is?

Having said that, try not stay in London, you get far more for your money.
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Can be tricky, especially as his wife works in finance (so assuming she'd end up working in Bank or Canary Wharf?), and "London" has expanded quite a bit. Rule of thumb is the closer you get to the city centre the more you're going to pay. On average, you can rent a 3-bedroom house outside the commuter belt for what you'd pay for a single room close to the city.

On the other hand, his wife works in finance, so stands to earn quite a bit anyway. May find that the issue is actually finding somewhere to rent in the first place.
 
signates said:
Busy negotiating with my current tenant to buy the property. Hopefully we can get this finalised in the next 3 months. Selling it even if we do not immigrate.

We will be keeping our primary house for now and decide on what to do if we do move.
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We are the last affordable suburb in SW so you have a better chance of selling quick. House across from me went for R1.6m and my other neighbour is asking R1.8m. He got viewings immediately after putting it on the market two weeks back and I see he has an offer. Smaller houses and yards than your place.
 
cbrunsdonza said:
We are the last affordable suburb in SW so you have a better chance of selling quick. House across from me went for R1.6m and my other neighbour is asking R1.8m. He got viewings immediately after putting it on the market two weeks back and I see he has an offer. Smaller houses and yards than your place.
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Agree with you on this. Still can't believe my luck when I snapped up this property for R950k in November 2011 and can easily sell for R2.1m. My opposite neighbour sold his house about 6 months ago for R2m. His was on the market for less than 2 months. We also now have of grid water which would also increase the property value.

My only current issue is my MIL who lives with us and has practically nowhere to go if we leave. We could rent out 3 of the individual rooms @ R4.5k per room(furnished or unfurnished) as a house share with her living in the fourth room. We also have space 4 cars in the main driveway and another 4 cars at the other entrance (corner plot with 2 driveways). This will more than cover the current bond repayments with some left over to cover maintenance costs. My one brother has already offered to take care of the property maintenence if we leave and decide not to sell and my MIL stays here.
 
signates said:
It would. She's currently in the asset management and investment industry as a Fund Accounting Manager so looking at the banking industry like HSBC, JPMorgan, etc.

We don't mind living further out of London. She will be going over alone without a job offer and will be looking for work there. This will only be at the end of March next year at the earliest as she has to give 3 month notice at her current employer.
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Commuting from the South East into London is painful. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-43808473

My advice is if you have to work in London, live in London within about 3 tube zones in a small place. Try the north east of London. Zone 1 is massively expensive. Zone 2 might be cheaper, but there can be some dodgy areas. Zone 3 costs more to travel, but you might find better rent values. You will learn about the North Circular and the M25. Its the equivalent of the Joburg ring road system around the city. Try to get a place inside of that. Don’t buy a car. It’s not worth it if you live in London, unless it’s mandatory for your job.

People do commute from outside of London, but not as pleasant as you think. Standing on the train for 40 mins day in and day out sucks.

Personaly, get the f### out of London as soon as you can :) London is NOT the UK, or even England. It’s an anonomaly.

Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester are good choices for IT, but since your wife?? is in investment banking that might hard, although some banks do have jobs outside of London to cut costs, so it depends who she works for and what she does.
 
The Voice said:
Can be tricky, especially as his wife works in finance (so assuming she'd end up working in Bank or Canary Wharf?), and "London" has expanded quite a bit. Rule of thumb is the closer you get to the city centre the more you're going to pay. On average, you can rent a 3-bedroom house outside the commuter belt for what you'd pay for a single room close to the city.

On the other hand, his wife works in finance, so stands to earn quite a bit anyway. May find that the issue is actually finding somewhere to rent in the first place.
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I rented a flat in Poplar for a year, which is 1 tube stop away from Canary Wharf. It was right on the border of the very dodgy Tower Hamlets area (google tower hamlets corruption). George Galloway was popular in that area , so you can imagine :). The rent was £925 a month for a 1 bed with kitchen and lounge combined. It was a nice flat, though. That was in 2009. Must be over a grand by now. The location was fine as long as you as never went too far in the wrong direction:)

When I moved down to Folkestone I rented a ground floor flat 1 bed flat for £475 which had a massive lounge, separate kitchen. Bedroom was twice the size and I had off street parking.
 
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