People & Places
Montoya's Australian Blog May 07
The Montoya family continue their monthly blog. This month, they consider the issues surrounding the lack of rental accommodation
G'Day again. Well what's happened in the last month?
Firstly, and most importantly, the Gold Coast Titans beat the Brisbane Broncos. Believe me, it was big news, and a shock over here, even for me! 'Big Brother was shown a lesson from Little Brother', the local papers stated!
Now that's been and gone, the State of Origin is on soon - Queensland vs NSW. It's like the Australian version of the FA Cup… only rugby league.
As for April on a family note, there's not been too much to report! We are now a couple weeks away from winter, yet temperatures are still 25 degrees plus, unreal really! I think we are going to be a lot warmer this year in Queensland than we were in NSW last year - apparently it does not drop too much below 20 degrees here, even in the Winter. How we miss England… Not!
We read recently that more and more Brit's are leaving the UK in search of a new life Down Under and why not? In fact, very good friends of ours have their sister moving over in the next couple of months, so they'll be yet more Poms around.
We have had the usual work, rest and play since the last article, nothing too exciting has happened really, apart from the addition of another puppy and lorikeet (bird) to the family! I have just spent a few days at the Brisbane Truck Show where my company had a stand. It was w very good show for us indeed. However, it seems that the 'skills crisis' is still a big issue out here. Everywhere I go in my job (I'm in the sales industry) people are looking for skilled sheet metal workers and welders! Come on over if you work in this field, you will never be out of work! I still have it to fall back on if I get bored with sales.
The housing market is still on the up out here in south-east Queensland too, not really that surprising when you consider that 1,500 people a week are moving to the area. Housing rentals are in great demand, even more so than houses to buy. I have even heard of Rent Auctions, where each house that becomes available to rent on the Gold Coast has several candidates waiting for it. Investors will have no trouble renting out properties in this current climate, and the average four-bedroom property out here is around AUS$420,000 to $500,000 (that's around the starting guide of £175,000). What's more, these properties are only 20 minutes from the beach and are far bigger than the average four-bedroom place in the UK. Of course, there are more expensive places to buy, and cheaper, I am just giving you an average for where we live, which is a very nice area indeed.
Well, that's it for now, short and sweet. Keep those emails coming as you do - still happy to help you Poms that are looking to start a new life Down Under - just as we did some 20 months ago now!
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