Moving to Australia is not without its ups and downs. To make sure you stay ahead of the game, it pays to be well informed. Everyone wants to start their new life down under with as much money as possible and there are a number of things you can do to ensure you make the most of your funds. Key topics always discussed on the forum include moving your possessions and transferring your money into your new Australian bank account.

Our sister site, Poms in Oz is hosting Live Chat sessions with leading experts in banking, currency exchange, international removals, pet shipping and removals insurance. These sessions will take place on the 07th December 2011 from 7pm-9pm (UK Time).

National Australia Bank, Moneycorp, PSS International Removals, PetAir UK and Insure Your Move will be on hand to answer any questions you may have about your move.

To participate, follow this link – Chat with Industry Experts, then, once the chat software has loaded, tick the ‘Guest’ option at the top of the chat window, then choose a username and click ‘Login’ and enter the ‘Moneycorp, NAB, PSS, PetAir UK or Insure Your Move’ chat rooms.

National Australia Bank
Rebecca Joils will talk about the Australian Banking system providing you with some insights as to what is different between the UK and Australia. She will also talk about how straight forward it is to open an Australian Bank account before you leave home and some of the services you should consider.

Moneycorp
Whether you are moving to Australia, or living there already, Jonathan Griffith will bring you the latest updates on the Aussie dollar and provide insight into the key factors influencing market movements. Exchange rates are constantly fluctuating and transferring your funds at the right time, via the right channel, can make a big difference to the amount of money you actually end up with.

PSS International Removals
One of the key ingredients when you are moving overseas is the planning of your removal. Liam Witham will be on hand to offer advice and answer any questions you may have regarding the packing and shipping of your household effects, including what items you can ship to Australia, Australian Customs procedures and AQIS. Whether you are importing household effects or just a vehicle, it is never too early to start researching or to start the process.

PetAir UK
PetAir UK is a unique pet travel service run by specialised vets for ultimate peace of mind. We will transport your pets safely and comfortably – worldwide.
No matter what the journey, we will remove the stress of complicated pet travel arrangements and ensure the best possible service to our clients and their much-loved companions is one of our highest priorities.
We operate a ‘one of the family’ policy, where all animals are treated with the same respect and care as our own pets. We know how much it means to you that your beloved pet arrives safely and by using PetAir UK you can assure yourself you are providing the very best care for your pet.
We offer truly comprehensive packages which provide absolute continuity from start to finish. Every client is allocated one of our personal veterinary consultants who will oversee every step of the process.
From complex documentation and import permit applications through to last minute flight changes, nothing is a problem for our competent and dedicated team.

Insure Your Move
Insure Your Move provide some of the most competitive insurance rates for removals to Australia and New Zealand. The Policy is underwritten by the Royal & Sun Alliance plc and the coverage afforded is second to none.
If you want to know more about the actual cover or why it is important to take out insurance then please feel free to ask John who has over 15 years experience in the moving industry working with both removers and multi-national corporate clients.

The average loan has risen 9.6 per cent in the past year to $266,900 on the back of soaring consumer confidence.

Owner-occupiers borrowed $17 billion, the highest monthly amount in 26 years, and a record level of first-home buyers accounted for more than 29 per cent of home loans.

Loans for new construction rose 8 per cent to 6334 – the highest level in seven years and 50 per cent higher than in December.

Erin Ronaldsen, residential research manager at real estate agency CBRE, said first-home buyers had helped prop up the market.

“In all likelihood the withdrawal of the first-home owners grant boost at the end of December, and state-based measures in July 2010, will have a dampening effect on the sub-$500,000 market,” she said.

“We expect falls could reach 10 per cent from the peak in some areas, depending on local market conditions.”

She said Victorian first-home buyers were getting better value than the national average.

The average value of the loan taken out by Australian first-home buyers has risen $20,400 since the introduction of the boost in October, but Victorian loans have risen an average $10,800.

CommSec economist Savanth Sebastian said almost 20,000 first-home buyers took out loans in May and banks were the big winners from the lending boom, writing almost 92 per cent of all loans.

“Consumer sentiment is well and truly out of the doldrums. The combination of rate cuts, fiscal stimulus and the perception that the worst is behind us has seen a substantial shift by consumers to being more optimistic about the future.”

But it all came back to job security, he said.

“With unemployment expected to rise in the next year, sentiment is likely to retreat from this exuberant level.”

Housing Industry Association senior economist Ben Phillips said the number of loans for new dwellings had risen for nine consecutive months, and he pointed to a modest recovery emerging for residential construction.

Are we really seeing green shoots of recovery? Yes and no, it seems.

Many of the crucial bits of economic performance, which matter most, are looking better.

Bank stocks in the United States have made record climbs out of the ground-zero territory they occupied before.

China’s economy could be bottoming out already, says the World Bank.

Our own stockmarket, after a period of the most extraordinary decline and volatility (40 days with price movements of plus or minus 3 per cent during 2008 – against 14 in 1987), has also kept a steady climb through March and into April.

As unemployment, the critical indicator for most people generally peaks 12 months after the stockmarket has troughed, then perhaps it is not exactly the beginning of the end of the recession, but at least the end of the beginning. A pathway out is in sight, even if it’s a very rocky one.

Nonetheless, the global economy and Australia’s too are still very fragile. Markets are perhaps most of all responding to a lack of bad news, rather than any great surfeit of good news.

And so much bad news has already been factored in already that the bar for a market recovery has been set very low. But there are still things that could make it worse.

Even though stimulus packages are taking hold in China, the World Bank forecasts growth at 6.5 per cent, or below the 8 per cent level needed to stay on top of unemployment – in a country where unemployment also means the threat of social instability.

Take out China’s performance from the rest of Asia and the picture for the region is truly horrible. The integration of the Asian economies into enormous supply chains feeding the developed world was a huge trade and jobs multiplier in the region when times were good, but unravelled at a rate no one foresaw at the end of last year.

The most shocking has been Japan, where industrial production fell by 38 per cent, and where observers of the economy say that not enough people outside the country understand the size of the hit it has taken.

Japan has now borne the weight of the world recession twice. The exports kept it going through a decade-and-a-half of poor growth have been hit savagely as consumers everywhere else recoil from spending. And as the world’s biggest creditor nation, its currency has soared as the Japanese bring their currency home – giving everyone else the free kick of an effective devaluation against the yen.

The danger is that if Japan decides the pain is so great it has no choice but a devaluation of its own, then that could set off a chain of competitive devaluations around the main manufacturing and exporting nations – especially in China.

It was China’s competitive devaluation of the yuan in 1994 that helped sow the seeds of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, so the huge impact of these moves by governments should never be underestimated.

Japan is still Australia’s biggest trading partner in both dollar value and the spread of mineral and rural exports, and whatever happens there affects us profoundly. Japan is also one of the places that could send the world economy off on another nasty skid. There is still plenty of room for miss-stepping before those green shoots really start to grow.