I don't think they will be able to buy on their own - they will need two incomes to afford a small unit in Sydney. Even in Campbelltown, decent two bedder (units) will be around A$500k. Your kid probably doesn't want to live in Campbelltown as it is more than an hour's drive from CBD (say using M5).

Your kids will probably need you to help out with a good deposit if they want to live in Sydney or Melbourne. If you want a decent two bedder nearer the city in Sydney, you will be looking at closer to A$800-900k. Sydney is very expensive when it comes to residential properties

In Melb or Sydney, you will definitely need parents help with the deposit even on two incomes. Even with housing rates at 2% now, you will still need a good deposit to break in. Very hard to enter the property market unless you got rich parents who are willing to help

My friends all have to help children buy in. The average amount given to their children was about A$130k each - otherwise their kids will be renting forever

Younger generation nowadays are not as discipline as generations before. Younger generation nowadays are predisposed to spending and have no desire to save/accumulate unlike our generation.

I don't know about kids in Malaysia but kids brought up in Aust (ABCs) have a propensity to have good life (eat out, travel) - how would you expect them to save when you have such lavish habits? I suspect Malaysian kids are probably similar in their spending patterns.

To save A$100k-A$150k (young starters) need a conservative spending approach which sadly is lacking in younger kids nowadays and they blame the boomers for property price appreciations

Good on you my friend!

i guess 25km is not really that bad and A$650k is fairly affordable. I guess if you had parents to help you, you will probably have done it earlier.

Most of my retiree friends in Sydney have always expressed that without helping them with a good deposit, their children would never have been able to buy in. We are the lucky generation where assets were a lot cheaper 30-40 years ago. Even though my retiree friends have quite a lot of passive income coming in through their super and rental income, most of us are still pretty thrifty because we have been living a life like this throughout our working lives and being first-generation migrants is not easy as most of you guys would know.

Very true.

Most of my friends prefer their children living with them so they can save up for their deposit. A lot of their children don't even pay board or even help out with simple bills . Life is quite a struggle esp if you get no helping hand nowadays. In my younger days, buying a property was much easier which is why most of my retiree friends have investment properties as well - with negative gearing it was even more attractive

Definitely catch up with you when you are back in KL.

I don't go out much in KL - try to minimise interaction with others as much as possible. My wife loves it so much as she has been re-united with her younger sister. I take an hour walk around my apartment (Mt Kiara) at 7am every morning - i see a lot of expats here walking in the morning as well.

Looks like Randwick is one of those suburbs that is affected in Sydney this time. I go to Westfield Bondi Jn a lot to shop as my wife bought two Chanel bags there recently(just before we flew back to KL) and that is her favorite shopping venue (other than the city) and Westfield Bondi Jn is one of those buildings with a few infections

Wow! Saving 10 hours drive to work! So you like WFH without the need to drive in to your office, huh?

On be honest with you, when i was WFH i hardly did much work. It was unproductive meetings all the time. My seniors wanted to show they are all working hard because they are all afraid of 'forced redundacies' . Most of them are in their 40s and with young kids so with their package around A$160K/yr, most of them know they will have to take a big pay cut if they lose their jobs. We have so many staff at senior levels that if you cut 50% of them, you will not see any drop in productivity. I was one of them . I know because i have been there 30 years. Only positions about A$250k/yr were on contracts so those below A$250/yr were mostly permanent staff. Of course there are contractors at every level but most of them have been cut when their contracts ended.

Got to go now as i have to buy some milk downstairs

Do you use Victoria Rd or Parramatta Rd? Victoria Rd will probably be better, huh?

I used to drive from Randwick to Sydney Uni and i would take Cleveland Street but i start work around 10.30am so traffic is not too bad. I usually finish around 4pm (just after School Zone hours) and go down towards Eddy Ave and up Albion Street to Anzac Pde. Going home hardly any traffic because people like to use Cleveland street so going along Eddy AVe to Albion Street (Surry Hills) has not much traffic . I had a very cushy job

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Jul 6 2021, 01:15 PM

Eastlakes is quite a handy suburb - i remember a good friend of mine called Sonny (i think his surname was Mak) who used to have a locksmith shop there in 80s and he used to go roaming around looking for girls. He is in his early 60s now and went through divorce and in Sydney once you go through divorce, your finances will be in bad shape. All those friends i know that have gone through divorce usually ends up bad financially and even worse when children are involved!! There used to BKK Eastlakes - don't know if it is still there anymore.

Your office is in the south, isn't it? I presume you use Princess Hwy for part of your journey so you are going against the traffic when you start going south

The only thing is Eastlakes is full of woks . There are also a lot of Islanders/Maori - these people commit a lot of crime and a lot of them have been thrown back to NZ by Scotty for serious crimes. You can usually easily recognise them as they have tatoos all over their body. There are a lot of these people in Eastlakes. Quite a few of them have been involved in carjacking too. If you know them, they are very friendly people but they love to have kids and usually end up on welfare and welfare destroys people !!

The reason why Eastlakes has such a high crime rate is because there are a lot of public housing (used to be called Housing Commission). Part of Mascot which borders Eastlakes also has a lot of public housing. Never buy near public housing because crime rates are always high in those areas. Public housing is a problem that society has to face and Aust wants an egalitarian society so it tries to spread the problem across all suburbs. The most famous block of public housing is at the Rocks whereby rows of terraces were used to house these welfare recipients - some of the terraces had beautiful views of Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The govt took a long time before they managed to sell off all this houses as there was a huge public backlash and it was a political time bomb. Eventually after more than 10 years, they managed to start selling off these terraces. The govt doesn't want welfare ghettos like Claymore so is very reluctant to sell off the more expensive areas (even Vaucluse and Double Bay has quite a lot of public housing). The govt is forcing some developers into offering some parts of their development for public housing so as to spread the problem throughout society and avoid welfare ghettos .

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Jul 8 2021, 07:30 PM

I don't go out much so the mco doesn't really affect me that badly. I wouldn't like to be working in Msia at the moment because cases are so high and govt seems to have totally lost control on how to handle the pandemic. I think the poor will suffer really badly this time - at least in Sydney govt will give handouts but here the country is already so poor. Luckily i didn't bring too much money back to KL - with the ringgit dropping to US4.20, people are wondering what is going to happen next!

I like the variety of food that we are now getting (even though we cannot eat in), it is still nice to get the variety of food here and it is so cheap!! . In Sydney, my wife and i are so sick of what we have been eating in Chinatown and Kingsford. I still dare not eat Indian and Malay food now in KL because my wife will not let me order them (she says i will get Covid because the food is dirty . There is a eatery opposite my condo called Seng Kee Restaurant (Solaris Mont Kiara) and i buy quite a lot of my meals from them - they are quite nice!

How are you there in Sydney? It is now middle of winter so another one and a half months to go for you. I really dread winter in Sydney - where i am now, my condo is quite cool and i have not been needing to turn on the air-conditioning yet. Lately the weather in KL is very cool and it always rains in the afternoons which keeps things a lot cooler .

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Jul 16 2021, 11:30 AM

I made my money mostly in Aust so using money in KL is very cheap esp with the Aussie around 3.07 (tt rate). I change some notes in Mid-Valley about three weeks ago and i got 3.16 (i still got quite a fair bit in notes but i will wait a while as ringgit seems to be dropping quite a lot recently). There is so much variety to choose from in KL and surprisingly i have not had diarrhoea so far. I still have not tried everything yet because i am still very careful what i eat and where i buy my food from with so many Covid cases in KL (sometimes i get people to buy/deliver the food for me). I try to minimise going out and a lot of relatives here are willing to help me buy/deliver. I also try to minimise seeing my other relatives until probably next year.

Don't know what it is or maybe i am old-fashioned. I just don't like buying food online . A lot of times, i will order the food (phone or whatsapp) and get someone (my relatives) to pick up and bring the food back to me. I know quite a few places now as i have ordered quite a lot of takeaway food since i came back to KL.

I think a lot of rich investors can invest A$5mil and get visa 888. This is the visa class a lot of rich PRCs have got in with. A mortgage broker friend of mine told me that he has been applying a lot of loans for these rich PRCs and this is the visa with minimum fuss and approval is usually granted quite fast. I think it is called the substantial investor visa or something like that. Aussies kicked a big fuss about this when it was implemented but now everyone has quietened down now. Money talks

Whenever an Asian-looking person bids in an auction, the press will always make it look like PRCs are taking over everything . The fact that they can't tell whether we (as Malaysians) are PRCs, we all get lumped into that category .

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Jul 19 2021, 01:21 PM

Hello my friend, you have actually done very well. Being first generation migrants are the hardest and when i look around the second-generation migrants (kids of my friends), their lives are a lot easier. Grandpa/grandma to mind the grandchildren and always pama to help around when work needs to be done around the house. In my generation as a first generation migrant, if you had children basically you are on your own and it is not easy!! Now at nearly 60, i can see a lot more things that we as first generation migrants went through compared to when i was younger and a lot more idealistic. Most of my retiree friends help their children financially (buy their first property) and most of us are still very thrifty because we have gone through a lot as first-generation migrants. A lot of my retiree friends are npw minding grandkids a few days a week as childcare is so bloody expensive in Aust!!

I find life in KL as a retiree a lot better than life in Sydney - food is everywhere!! Only disturbing thing is the Covid situation in Msia. Things are so much cheaper in KL compared to Sydney - even utility bills here are half what i pay in Sydney. Sydney is so crazily expensive!! What do you expect when minimum wage is A$20/hr?

Keep in touch.

This limeuu is very up-to-date with migration matters

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Aug 1 2021, 05:56 AM