JAMIEKERRIE

Apr 22 2007, 09:55 PM

cathnpaul

Apr 22 2007, 05:41 PM

moneywise - we arent going to move our lump sum over until the exchange rate picks up and will only move say £10k over to start off as spending money. that will get us a place to live and a car and fingers crossed the exchange rate will have picked up a lot.

we will move a little into hifx so that when the exchange rate starts to go back up we will have a trigger to move the lump sum over. we are looking at setting it at 2.5% to get the best deal, even if its next year, we will still have the interest off the UK bank account ticking over.

as for the second question...i added some short term lets on your other thread..not what you wanted, but i cant think of anything else other than renting/motels or staying with family/friends. I am looking forward to seeing what other suggestions people come up too now.

good to see you back on the forum Jamie. x

Yes, we will probably do the same, assuming the rate doesn't pick up, but i'm optomistic it will, but I doubt very much it will be as high as $2.54 again, we are kicking ourselves we didn't do it in Feb, but we hadn't found a buyer for our house then and considered it too risky at the time to do a "Forward Contract"..hindsight!!

I was also reading on expats yesterday and one post said that historically in the last few years $2.30 is ouch, $2.40 is ok-good and $2.50 is party time- reading that made me feel even worse! Apparantley Aus is booming and spending at the mo (sounds a bit like here!) and that some are even taking out funds from there Super to buy property...suppose it's the same as unlocking equity here, NOT good..

Thankyou for the links on the other thread, the one you have booked looks lovely, but we only really need a 1 bed/garage (just the 2 of us) but the other link to realestate.com (estate agents list) will be Very useful, thankyou, we will copy & paste e-mails to them all nearer the time..Ok, if think of anything else pl let us know,

Jamie & Kerrie.