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Old 05-29-2013, 04:13 PM
 
Location: St. Louis, MO
4,009 posts, read 6,832,383 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Colorado^ View Post
Best place to live and work if you're making minimum wage or you're a blue collar worker. Or if you simply enjoy paying 2-3 times more for everything.

COL in Australia is criminal.
I totally agree.
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Old 05-29-2013, 05:57 PM
 
Location: NSW
3,746 posts, read 2,955,685 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by the troubadour View Post
Hardly with the most over inflated housing in the world. As I understand civic engagement at 93% pushed Australia in top position. When voter turn out is one of the highest in the world owing to the law,not hard to see why the country rated so highly.

Life happiness is debatable. Having such a high individual debt in such an expensive country is hardly stuff of dreams.
Very good point, unless you bought in before 2000 - virtually anywhere in Oz - your quality of life is severely compromised by the size of your mortgage, and the percentage it represents of your after tax income.
Having been stuck in the renting trap for quite a while between houses, due to a number of factors, I for one cannot support these extravagant claims about Australia.
And even the rent, in somewhere like Sydney, is so outrageous that all quality of life is forfeited.
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Old 05-29-2013, 07:05 PM
 
Location: St. Louis, MO
4,009 posts, read 6,832,383 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Derek41 View Post
Very good point, unless you bought in before 2000 - virtually anywhere in Oz - your quality of life is severely compromised by the size of your mortgage, and the percentage it represents of your after tax income.
Having been stuck in the renting trap for quite a while between houses, due to a number of factors, I for one cannot support these extravagant claims about Australia.
And even the rent, in somewhere like Sydney, is so outrageous that all quality of life is forfeited.
This is absolutely true. At 29, I highly doubt I would be in the same position in life and financially, had I stayed in Australia. My friends back in Aus, although all (for the most part) have similar levels of education and work experience to myself in addition to being at the 'same point in life' (ie: married with children or expecting children) are far behind with regards to their personal finances.

I realize that my husband and I bought in a very affordable housing market (thanks to the U.S. housing market crash) and in a very affordable city (the average house price in the St. Louis Metro area is $126,000). However, we are 100% mortgage and debt free. We were able to achieve this by living significantly below our means for a few years and living in a very affordable rental house (for North Carolina standards- where we were previously).

My friends back in Australia, also at the age of 29, are still either renting (and paying too much and therefore unable to get ahead) or are suffering through $400-$500k mortgages back in Brisbane (where the average house price is currently $510,000) for houses almost identical to the one I bought for a 5th of that!

After all is said and done, because of the lower housing costs and lower cost of living here in the U.S., DH and I have more disposable income at the end of each month to put toward savings, retirement, hobbies and vacations. Therefore, in my personal opinion, we have a better quality of life than I could have achieved in Australia.

Sure, in Australia you can go to the beach or the mountains easily from a city such as Brisbane. It's an aesthetically beautiful country. However, that to me isn't the be all and end all of quality of life. As I've said before, what it really comes down to is the individual and the individual's needs. Everybody wants different things- and everybody has their own classification of quality of life.

To reiterate, for me, it's the peace of mind knowing that I own my house and I'm debt free, and subsequently being able to afford to enjoy myself. My guess is that I'd probably be in my 40s or 50s before I really reached that same point in Australia.
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Old 05-29-2013, 07:27 PM
 
1,337 posts, read 1,938,288 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by glamatomic View Post

I realize that my husband and I bought in a very affordable housing market (thanks to the U.S. housing market crash) and in a very affordable city (the average house price in the St. Louis Metro area is $126,000). However, we are 100% mortgage and debt free. We were able to achieve this by living significantly below our means for a few years and living in a very affordable rental house (for North Carolina standards- where we were previously).
.

I largely agree the housing bubble in Aus and other countries is slaughtering young peoples financial futures, meanwhile there is still this bizzare illusion if your "home" goes up in value your getting richer!.

Having said that and to add a bit of balance, keep in mind what you are saying is a little situation. If you were one of 10's of millions of Americans that purchased their house between say 2003-2007 there is a really good chance a mortgage would look more like a AUS average mortgage and be in negative equity. Like so many things timing is everything.

Also house prices in Major US cities can still be fairly high, keep in mind you can buy a half decent 250K house in Tasmania, as long as you have a job to support it. Directly comparing areas is nearly impossbile as the US is around 13X more populated.
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Old 05-30-2013, 01:24 AM
 
291 posts, read 474,641 times
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You guys actually read the report?

Quote:
In Australia, households on average spend 19% of their gross adjusted disposable income on keeping a roof over their heads, slightly below the OECD average of 21%.
Australia

As opposed to:

US: 19%
UK: 22%
Canada: 22%
Germany: 21%
France: 21%
Japan: 22%
Italy: 22%
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Old 05-31-2013, 12:40 AM
 
1,337 posts, read 1,938,288 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Paparappa View Post
You guys actually read the report?


You are missing the point, many here don't fully believe this report if at all. Persoanlly I can see issues with it
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Old 05-31-2013, 01:06 AM
 
291 posts, read 474,641 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Battleneter View Post
You are missing the point, many here don't fully believe this report if at all. Persoanlly I can see issues with it
OECD statistics are pretty reliable.
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Old 05-31-2013, 11:35 AM
 
2,933 posts, read 4,093,699 times
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I would click on the actual OECD link. There are sliding scales to see what your own "best place" is. US, Australia, Canada and Denmark are at the top for me (not surprising to me at all).

Anyway, my rent in Oz is about 25% more than my mortgage in the States . . . then again I bought a cheap house in a mediocre neighborhood as an investment. Had I bought in the next neighborhood over the difference would probably be more like 10%. If I wanted to buy a house here I could find one for $250k-$350k . . . I'd just be living in Ipswich or Logan. It's no different in the US. Before the crash the mantra was always "drive 'til you qualify".
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Old 05-31-2013, 11:21 PM
 
9,327 posts, read 21,950,397 times
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I'm dubious to any study. A friend from Adelaide visited a month ago and when she was in SA State Government she told me they had formed a committee to review the statistics needed by some survey and put in the data to make Adelaide look like heaven on earth. Also SA paid to join the survey. It did come in top 10 that year. As much as I love Adelaide, I wouldn't consider it top 10 in the world to live in, as my criteria would perhaps be different, but there are so mnany cities to chose fromn on this planet.
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Old 06-01-2013, 12:31 AM
 
291 posts, read 474,641 times
Reputation: 270
Again, the OECD is a pretty reliable organization in terms of statistics. You can, of course, look at the detailed statistics on each country's page and make up your own mind.

EDIT: Found this today



http://www.oecd.org/eco/outlook/focusonhouseprices.htm
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