my wife has been told by two different people that when you get to adelaide(or australia) the first house that you buy(mortgage) has to be a NEW house??

is this true???

:help:
kev

Hi Kev.

As I am living in UK I can't answer as an Adelaidian (that doesn't look right!) :loopy:

The answer is no! our son and dil moved out to Adelaide in January and have since bought a house, a thirty-year old house so I'm not sure where your friends got that from!

:medium smiley:

Your wife has been told absolute nonsense. If you are eligible to purchase a home, you can buy whatever you like.

Kev

They might be getting confused with the first time buyers bonus thing that has been in place. I'm sure I read somewhere that you get an extra payment if it is a new house, but I'm sure someone will correct me if Im wrong, I'll check it out on the webpage I've got listed somewhere about it and let you know.

Otherwise you can buy whatever you like as Annie and PP have said.

Sasha :)

I think she must have been told about one of the visa's which you either have to buy a new house or renovate an older house, the visa in question could be either the parents visa or retirement one not too sure.

Juls

I do know it is far cheaper to build a new house in payout costs. Up to 30%. That is due to only paying stamp duty on the land i think (not 100% sure but something like that)

Sasha - as I understand it you can get the first time buyers bonus on the first house you buy out here. Currently $7000 I believe. But we'll only be renting so I don't know the ins and outs.... Apparently that's somewhat less than the stamp duty you can expect to be paying out on an average price house of around $250,000 :(

PP - wasn't there some discussion in the Advertiser a month or two back about this. As I remember it, people were budgeting to build their houses, but by the time they had built a year or 18 months later the house had a higher book value than when they started out, so they were being stung for loads of extra stamp duty over and above what they had budgeted for and everyone was saying how unfair it was.

Elaine

If you have PR you can buy whatever type/age of property you like. However, if you are a foreign investor (i.e don't live here, or don't have PR) then there are restrictions on what you can buy, one of them being that you must buy a new house. I think this is where the confusion has set in.

adelaidegirl

On one of the "I want that house" episodes last week that came from Aus, the presenter did say about one of the couples- due to their visa requirements they had to buy a new house.
They didn't look old enough to be retiring in Aus though from what I can remember.

Lisa
:dancing dog:

Oh bum!! Does that mean that if our circumstances did change, and we were able to afford to to get a retirement visa we'd have to buy a new house?

They really don't want retirees out there do they? There's always another obstacle :loopy: and then you have to be re-assessed after four years 'cos you only have a temporary visa!

:medium smiley:

I've found the webpage. You get $7,000 on any house but there was an additional $7,000 which later reduced to $3,000 which is now completely void but this was paid on new houses only.

http://www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au/fhog/home.html

I knew I hadn't dreamt it!

Sasha :)

Sorry just read my post again I didn't explain it very well - like Elaine said you get the $7,000 anyway if you buy a new or old house but it was the extra I was trying to find out about. The additional payment is now void as it was last in place in 2002 for new builds.

Just so I don't confuse anyone!

Sasha :)

The 4 year retirement visa is not one of those that restricts you to new houses only. I think it is short term visas and foreign investors that cannot buy existing property.
Yes Annie, we as retirees will have to apply for a further 2 year visa after the first 4 years but don't forget that once our daughter has been PR for 2 years we can apply for the parents visa which would then give us PR. I believe that there is a very long waiting list for that so we are hoping that we can get sufficient funds together to apply for the Contributary parent visa that I think is a much shorter waiting time.
This is our long term plan and we are keeping fingers crossed :sign03:

Brian

:thumbs up:

Oh wow! Thanks for that Brian. I have to say I had wondered how you had managed to get visas to go out with your young family. Didn't realise you could apply for permanent visas after a while!

We have still got three sons over here so it may be that a three month holiday every year would be the way to go. There was a point where we weren't in touch with one of them and the other two had given us their blessing and said 'go ahead - do IT!' But now that we are all 'together' as it were (complicated story) I would feel pretty awful leaving UK.

It's so hard trying to split yourself down the middle isn't it?

The retirement visa went out of our reach last Christmas anyway, before then you only had to have $600,000 but since Christmas they upped it to $800,000 and there's no way we could find that!

Never mind, we have booked our holiday now and will be in Oz for three months from 23rd October. With a bit of luck and as long as our health hangs out we should be able to do that for a good few years!

Thanks for the info anyway and good luck for a wonderful future!

:thumbs up:

I certainly hope you will come visit us all when you arrive in October Annie... you are a VIP Adleaidebrit and we would all love to meet you!! :bouncing smiles:

That is so kind PP, I am looking forward to meeting you too.

I will make arrangements when it gets nearer the time.

Love Anne XXX :medium smiley:

Wow! You're up early again! Is your hip playing you up? :unsure:

I forgot to say Annie that we will also have to meet the 'balance of family' criteria, as many children or more in OZ than any/all other countries. I suspect your 3 sons in UK would stop you qualifying even if you had the money.
We have 2 daughters, one going to Oz and one staying! terrible problem :doh: but retiring to the sun was our deciding factor. :eyes mouth:
Thanks for your best wishes and lets hope that one day us wrinklies can get together in Adelaide (show the PPs of this world how to party eh?) If I can get out of me zimmer frame??

Brian

:devil:

:thumbs up: