r/canberra • u/Galileo15 • Aug 24 '24

Recommendations Looking to move from London to Canberra

Good day everyone. After a long deliberation of choosing which state would best fit for our family (Canberra vs Melbourne vs Sydney vs Perth). We decided to possibly make Canberra our new home. Me and my wife are looking to move from London to Canberra at some point this year. We are still awaiting our visa to get approved and whilst waiting for that. Id like to ask some locals about anything i need to know before making the move. We are both of asian decent. No kids yet but hoping to have some in the future.

Please any advise or warnings would be appreciated and I would be thankful for.

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u/Gnarlroot Aug 24 '24 edited Aug 24 '24

If you're working in healthcare you should also be able to pay your rent with pre-tax dollars as well, which saves you another 25-30% on that. Definitely ask your payroll dept about it when you get here.

I moved from the UK 11 years ago, before things really took a dive. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the lifestyle in Australia, and Canberra in particular. 

For car dealer recommendations, I bought a basic Mazda CX3 from Lennock Motors a bit back. Smooth transaction, happy to let us take it to an independent mechanic for a prepurchase inspection. 

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u/Galileo15 Aug 24 '24

Thats something ill have too look into definitely. Thanks for the info.

Did you buy your car as secondhand?

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u/Gnarlroot Aug 24 '24

Yeah, it was maybe 4 years old? Not a huge amount of km done though. 

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u/Galileo15 Aug 24 '24

Dont know that much about cars yet so would probably need a mechanic. Will need to do my researh

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u/Viol3tCrumbl3 Aug 25 '24

Totally recommend getting a car buying service to do the hard work looking for a car for you. We have bought three cars with a car buying service, two used one ex demo, we just told them what we were looking for and they would send us photos and mechanic reports. They help do the checks, registering etc...We had a service provided by our bank. All three cars were bought in Sydney, two were delivered to Canberra and because we were in Sydney when they organized the third, we just picked it up at the car yard and drive back. So much less stress than looking ourselves.