I am sure the bank doesn't want him to go bankrupt (even though they know he probably will if housing doesn't recover) so they try to milk him as much as possible (with these personal loans and credit cards). All these personal loans and credit cards were only given in Nov last year!! The banks also hope that the housing market will recover so they will not end up having to provide for additional bad debt provisions in their balance sheet. My Egyptian told me (after the bank revealed to him there are a lot of people in similar situations to him) that the banks will give him some grace period (to sell) if he cannot meet his repayments. I wouldn't have believed stories like this if i had not heard it personally from someone i know!!

As far as i know, they keep giving you a 1 year RRV but you must satisfy them on why you cannot meet their 2 years out of 5 stay. While on a 1 year rrv visa, they will monitor how long you have stayed in the preceding 5 years - if they are not satisfied that you are serious about staying 2 out of 5 years, they will not grant you any further 1 year RRV - this will in effect mean that you will be forced to stay in Aust until you have fulfilled the 2/5 requirement. When you reflect on this, it means the govt want you to spend at least 40% of your time in Aust.

The rrv is a visa for you to return to Aust. You don't need a rrv if you live in Aust and have no plans to travel out of Aust. Some of my PR friends who live in Sydney have not renewed their rrv for yonks since they never travel.

When renewing your rrv, you will be assessed how long you have lived in Aust in the preceding 5 years. If you have stayed 2 out of the 5 years, you will get a new 5 year rrv. Anything less than 2 years will get you a 1 year rrv and the cost of that rrv is slightly less than A$400.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Aug 20 2019, 08:47 PM

Rrv and being a PR is a totally separate issue. You only need a rrv if you are overseas (not in Aust) and needs to get back to Aust. Before being granted a 5 year rrv, you need to have stayed 2 years out oF the previous 5 years.

I am not on my laptop now and typing out of a mobile as I am overseas on holidays. If we are on this issue again when I am back in Sydney, I will explain further.

Well explained.

Normally before you 'surrender' your PR, you will be asked to sign a declaration that you are renouncing your PR. This usually happens when your application for a rrv is rejected (usually for not being able to meet the 2/5 year condition).

Vocational Education is usually for trades certificate (like plumbing, electrician, motor mechanic, chef, etc...) and usually are for people who elect to be a tradesperson. You would normally start after Year 10 and are for people who don't want to pursue University. Pursue-ing a trades profession is not a bad career path as tradespeople make a good living - you can also be your own boss once you have enough experience. One of my Malaysian friend's kids is now a chef and is working as a head chef (Mariott Sydney) and gets very good money (around A$100k) though the hours are not very digestable . This kid would have done very badly had he gone to University as he was one of the thickest kids i have met (when he was young) so it is remarkable when we heard recently that he is now a head chef.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Sep 27 2019, 04:03 PM

RBA interest cut has invigorated the property market in Sydney. Sellers in Sydney are not wanting to sell now as they are waiting for another boom.

Job market is inching downwards as employers are not keen to hire with the current economic climate. Those currently with a job are trying hard to cling onto their jobs.

We are having Labour Day in NSW today so is having the day off since it is a public holiday.

Looks like interest rates will continue going down for the next 12 months as the Reserve Bank has no other solutions for the economy - the downside is that people will spend less as the Reserve Bank is clearly cutting rates for a reason and it is not a rosy picture. Household debt is now so high people will struggle if the rates do not go down. Everyone is now taking about recession but hopefully for the 'lucky country', we can avoid that or at least defer it for a couple of years. We are not so much the 'lucky country' now but the 'drought country'.

Actually this interest rate cut is a godsend for a lot of the indebted - as an example, my Egyptian friend who was nearly bankrupted had coffee with me the other day and now he hopes the govt will continue cutting interest rates - the residential property market in Sydney now has jumped (by about 10%) in my area so he is hoping to sell sometime next year to breakeven (he bought another 3 properties in 2016 to speculate further on top of the 2 properties that he has already owned). The govt has no choice but to cut interest rates as the economy is very sluggish and people are afraid to spend. The Aussie has been going down a bit with the interest rates cut but in these past 2 days, it is strongly rebounding (this morning it is 68.58 against USD).

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Oct 19 2019, 06:36 AM

Definitely agree that another 0.25% cut is coming in the next few months but the Aussie has been very resilent at the US67c support level. I have quite a lot of my investments in International shares (it is performing very well as the Aussie falls) but i also have a defined benefit super in mostly Aussie assets (about 60% of my portfolio) which is locked in until i retire. I have been hedging against a falling Aussie dollar by buying the Magellan etf (ASX code: USD) as i always felt that the Aussie will fall to around US65c.

There are a lot of retirees in Sydney (i know a few myself) who will never invest in equities and would only put their money in term deposits - they are currently suffering due to the low interest rates but i just cannot understand their mindset by investing so conservatively!! I have a very aggressive attitude by nature and even if i retire, my portfolio would still be fairly aggressive. I always believe if you have a good basket of stocks, even if it drops sharply, it will eventually go back up to their previous levels. That is why it is a good policy not to gear yourself too highly.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Oct 19 2019, 03:37 PM

A lot of retirees are very conservative because there is the Aust govt pension to fall back on when their income from their term deposits fall below the pension income threshold - that is the main reason why they don't mind parking their money in term deposits. Why want to risk your money when the safety net can easily be triggered? The govt has to severely cut back on the govt pension as this is a huge burden on the budget!! However, this is political suicide so why do it? There are so many retirees in Sydney who lives in Watson's Bay and Vaucluse (homes worth at least a few million dollars) with harbour views and they are collecting the full old-aged pension because they structure their assets in such a way that they have minimal assets outside the family home. When i tell my foreigner friends the family home is not included in the pension-assets test (in Aust), they think i am joking and cannot believe that this is happening - they were saying that any govt would go broke with this kind of generous welfare law which can be rorted with ease.

When investing in International shares (most fund managers in Aust do not hedge currency movements when investing overseas nowadays as Aussie is so weak), you profit as soon as the Aussie dollar drops as your asset is invested in another currency. This is why foreign funds in Aust have been doing very well in the last few years - a lot of their profits came from the Aussie dropping. I noticed this about 4-5 years ago as i have always been very bearish on the Aussie dollar and since then my portfolio is now in International shares (cannot do anything about my defined-benefit super as those are locked in to the Aussie markets).

I have been monitoring currency movements (esp the Aussie) and i find there is a lot of buying interest in the Aussie nowadays(i think it is probably because the Aussie is weak). The Reserve Bank wants a weak Aussie (very obvious with their comments that they make regularly) and the media in Aust is always protraying that a weak Aussie is good for the economy as well.

I will be retiring in Msia soon (hopefully end-2020) and want a strong Aussie - luckily the Ringgit is not much stronger than the Aussie (both very weak currencies in my opinion). However given the choice of currencies, i would still prefer to hold Aussie over the Ringgit.

My wife and i will not be able to qualify for the aged-pension when we retire at 67 - the reason is because we are over the (asset-test) threshold which for a couple is A$840k (family home not included). We have paid a lot of taxes and were very frugal in our earlier days and i know a few of my Aussie friends who blew all their disposal income and not bothered to save. These people had a hell of a time (travelling the world, eating out in good restaurants a lot, driving poshy cars) and when they retire, they will qualify for the aged-pension. Is this fair?

Australian Financial Review (AFR) came out with a report that a couple with A$400k would come out the same as a couple with A$840k in retirement. Why is this so? The couple with A$400k will qualify for a full pension (around A$35k/yr per couple) and on top of this, they also get a lot of other subsidies (electricity, car rego, bulk-billing specialists (medical specialists) and a whole lot more). I know so many PRC and Honkies who also have properties overseas and they are rorting the old-aged pension to the full. They were always bragging that their rental income from overseas were more than their aged-pension so they were always flying overseas.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Oct 20 2019, 07:14 AM

It is Centrelink that gives the pension so it will be Centrelink (with the help of ATO) tracking down your overseas assets. The ATO has been working hard in the last couple of years hunting overseas hidden assets. These PRCs and Honkies don't declare them otherwise they will be ineligible for the aged-pension. These people have already planned hiding these overseas assets a long time back before they retire. I had a Honkie female colleague tell me in 1994 (she is about 15 years older than me) not to buy assets in Aust as you will not qualify for the Australian pension when you get older. Imagine these people had already planned for it since they were much younger. I see her in Chinatown all the time and she keeps bragging she has 2 properties in HK giving her HK$200k/yr rental and she still gets the full pension (she goes back to HK 3-4 times a year). It is very hard for Centrelink/ATO to trace your foreign income unless you declare it voluntarily.
What i have outlined is what i know personally - the amount of rort that goes on in the Aust welfare system is so huge that there is a general consensus that if you can rort but do not, then you are being stupid. Most of those that rort are usually migrants though (Italians, Greeks, PRCs, Hongkies) - the local Aussies a bit better but they still do rort except they dare not do it too excessively. Migrants will go all the way rorting the system - after all the penalty after getting caught is you just need to give back what you have taken and usually doesn't end up being convicted.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Oct 20 2019, 09:15 AM

Thanks for letting me know that Centrelink and ATO are together in the same office - i have always thought that they were separate entities. I have never been to a Centrelink office as i have never needed any welfare assistance.

You are being too sensitive.

A lot of people know about Centrelink through their friends and not neccessarily through personal experience - like me for instance, i learn about different types of welfare payments through friends and relatives. Anyway, there is no more shame in receiving welfare benefits anymore. On the contrary, people are now bragging that they are so smart and finding loopholes in getting benefits...

Retirees who are able to save enough so as not to be eligible for the aged-pension are usually quite shrewd/savvy with their money. If you ask me to spend lavishly to bring my assets down so that i qualify for the aged-pension, i would rather have the security of having money under my name anytime. I would have retired much earlier had i had the mindset to fall back on the aged-pension. My super alone is now way over the threshold but i still want to build on my retirement savings which is why i am working till end-2020 (working half-time from now till end-2020 as i am taking my long service leave as well). I should have retired 3 months ago but i changed my mind as my retirement savings will grown another A$130k by just working an extra 16 months. Once retired, it will be close to impossible to land myself in another similar job (if my retirement plans go awry) because age-discrimination is rife in Aust. That is why i have to be very careful when i stop working as there is no turning back. I am now getting a bit of 'pre-retirement blues' thinking of my imminent retirement next year.

All my Malaysian retiree friends (living in Aust) are very careful with their spending esp the richer ones. All of them have children and i can understand they would like to leave some kind of legacy for their offsprings. This is just typical of our Chinese heritage. Eventhough my income is quite considerable, my wife and i are still quite frugal - we have grown up with that kind of mindset!! We only spoil ourselves with the occasional restaurant meal (a bit more often nowadays as i get closer to retirement). In Sydney, i still drive an older model Honda CRV (belonged to my sister since new and she gave it to me when she retired 8 years ago). My wife and i are so used to being thrifty and we quite enjoy a simpler lifestyle. My wife is now planning our future overseas holidays (when i retire) and even then, we are quite careful that we do not overspend unnecessarily.

It is now nearly bedtime for me (9.15pm Sydney time) so it is time for me to say good night.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Oct 21 2019, 06:18 PM

This is what i have observed with all my older Msian retiree friends in Sydney - they want to be around their children and grandchildren. They say i am so stupid to go back to KL to retire because they would never go back to Msia to retire as their children are mostly in Sydney.

Two years ago (during my retirement planning), i thought i will be pretty comfortable retiring in KL when i retire with what i have. Now i am getting 'cold feet' as i get nearer to my last retirement day which is what i meant by having pre-retirement blues. In my mind, I always concluded i won't have enough to retire on if i retire too early - i can easily add a few hundred thousand dollars (Aussie) to my bottom line by working an extra 3 years due to the compounding effect (provided there is no sharemarket crash). In Sydney, retiring at 58 is a luxury as cost of living is very high and this makes people around me all work till at least 65-67. My friends and relatives are also all advising me to continue working for another few more years at least. This is causing a huge dilemma for me!! I observe myself and can see GREED all written over my body.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Oct 24 2019, 03:14 AM