Furniture or no furniture??

[Guest The Standrings]

Hi

Please can someone help we are just in the process of selling our house and the purchaser wants to buy all our furniture. We were not sure whether to ship it or not anyway as there is not much of it and its not in particularly brilliant condition. Still its furniture and its ours. Is it worth selling it, bringing cash and just buying it in Oz or is that going to cost us a fortune??? Thanks

Emma:huh:

[Guest MADTOM]

IMP I would bring everything Furniture can be pricey here but obviously you should weigh up the price of the furniture V. cost of shipping.

[Sallyh]

Although some people get rid of everything and buy again new, I did look briefly into that idea but there's not enough online shopping in Australia to make it easily readily comparable in terms of cost. You can find out some major things (or cost it solely at IKEA which I wouldn't have wanted to do, only for some things like dining tables etc but not lounge chairs).

 

I quickly decided that it was highly likely that the cost of new would be more than shipping, but then there would still be personal things you would want to bring and would need a fair bit of container space anyway, worst of both worlds it seemed.

 

The only other thing, is do you have children? The other consideration I would keep quite high is that your furniture is YOURS and it will make wherever you live, feel more like home. We've lived in 3 houses so far in Australia but they've all felt like "ours" and the children have settled easily and know what is "theirs". To be honest I have also quite liked keeping our furniture for that reason too.

[Guest Nick11]

Bring everything...including the kitchen sink.

Every body who settles here under estimates how much it will all cost.

[Guest guest3462]

Hi we sold our furniture with the house and started again here. Including 2 cars we spent $18,000 and comfortably furnished a large 4 bed house. There are furniture stores that do pretty reasonable packages take a look at Fantastic Furniture - Home for a basic idea of costs. Obviously you do get what you pay for but if budgets are tight then it's a good place to start. It can be expensive for White goods and electrical goods so if you can bring those items you'd do well. It cost us £870 for 75sqm in a shared container and I'm certain you couldn't buy all your electrical items for the $ equivalent. You really need to weigh up the personal value of your belongings against what you have to spend when you arrive before you decide. If we had to do it again I think we would have brought everything in a container (around £3500 for a full container) and saved the money on what we spent here. Hope this help

Julia

[likesshopping]

Hi

We sold everything and brought just 10 boxes of photos, books and personal belongings. We just thought about the cost of bringing it over - could go towards buying nice new stuff for our new life.

 

I would do the same again...

 

Sarahx

[Tamara (Homes Down Under)]

Hi,

We sold everything with the house and just brought personal effects.

 

Some things are very expensive here though...beds, electrical goods etc and if I was to do it again i would have bought plenty of new goods, taken their packaging off to make them look used and packed them in with the personal effects as i still needed a shared container.

 

If you want to compare prices you can have a look on the Goodguys (electrical ggods) web site (use the post code 5167 for the Noarlunga store) or Harvey Norman (expensive) for furniture.

 

Tamara

[HEAPS GOOD !!!]

We sold everything and just shipped clothes etc out here.

 

We used to goto the Lions up at blackwood...we got some cracking stuff at exceptionally low prices....

 

HG

[taffordbark]

We shipped almost all our furniture.... nothing like having all your own familiar stuff around to help make your Aussie house your HOME......

[snifter]

We are shipping about 2/3rds as no way could we replace the stuff like for like at a similar cost. Our bed cost almost £800 (half price on sale ) and no way could we afford anything close to the quality of it once there. It was purchased with the intention of not needing to replace it for a looooooong time . So shipping a chunk of our stuff is a no brainer for us.

 

We are leaving the old or crummy stuff (TV cabinet, Ikea bookcases, old shelves, fridge freezer, garden table and chairs and some other stuff) but taking the decent stuff. Plus I like the stuff we are taking so

 

If you can afford to replace a large portion of your furniture once there (bear in mind the exchange rate atm also when pricing stuff in Aus $ and convert to UK so you compare prices and have a rough estimate of total costs).

 

For example, I wasn't going to bring our tumble dryer. I thought get a new one over there. Then I looked up the price of a condenser dryer online in Aus and nearly fell of my chair. With the exchange rate it was really expensive. So our one will be coming with us for sure.

 

Some take stuff, others buy over there. Depends on your preference and finances I'd say.

[Guest jmtomo]

this is our 2nd time emmigrating, we moved from uk to nz 8 years ago, and sold everything, this time we are taking everything. well the stuff that is worth taking, furniture and appliances seem to cost a fortune over this side of the world, aus is cheaper than nz mind,

 

we had lots of hand me down's last time and we didnt think is was worth shipping anything, but it has taken years to replenish our cupboards, and even things like tools cost a bomb and take years to gather everything you need.

 

so my personal opinion is ship it

 

good luck

we are just sorting out our shipping qoutes at the moment, see you on the other side

jo

[Guest The Standrings]

Thanks everyone for all your replies, you have been really really helpful!!! I think we might go for leaving the more rubbish stuff and replacing things we can afford over here to ship to Oz. It seems to be the more sensible solution! Thanks again for all your help!

[Guest boesman]

I was just wondering when people talk about a 20ft container. First I don't know how big a 20ft container is and secondly, when people talk of packing furniture, is that folded up/flat, taken apart or as it is? We live in a 4 bed, but I think we have very little furniture. Beds can all come apart and flat packed, Three chest of drawers (which might be flat packed), a three seater and two seater settee and the rest is all small boxable stuff, like kitchen stuff and hubby's tools, clothes and of course bicycles. I haven't got the faintest idea how much space we would need and perhaps it's too early to get a qoute, so am just wondering...

[snifter]

I was just wondering when people talk about a 20ft container. First I don't know how big a 20ft container is and secondly, when people talk of packing furniture, is that folded up/flat, taken apart or as it is? We live in a 4 bed, but I think we have very little furniture. Beds can all come apart and flat packed, Three chest of drawers (which might be flat packed), a three seater and two seater settee and the rest is all small boxable stuff, like kitchen stuff and hubby's tools, clothes and of course bicycles. I haven't got the faintest idea how much space we would need and perhaps it's too early to get a qoute, so am just wondering...

 

Have a look on the shipping company sites, they should have the actual dimensions of the 20ft long container. Its like those big metal ones you see on the docks for shipping.

 

You'd flat pack what can be flat packed, fill the drawers with stuff rather than take apart is what I'd do and then box the rest.

 

If you don't actually need a 20ft container it seems daft to pay for a whole one. You;d be better off either sharing (usually takes longer to reach destination is the down side) or depending on the value of the larger items you want to ship, consider leaving them and buying once in Aus, if its cost effective. It may cost you more to ship only a few large items than it will to replace once there.

 

Personal stuff you could box up and ship on its own or with furniture.

[sueoc]

We left all our Furniture,Suite,Fridge, Washing Machine,Beds ,Tellys etc.Couldnt be asred waiting for the same old,same old to arrive.As said before,new life,new surroundings and new furniture was what we thought. Bought much crap to start of with,but it got us by till we got our feet under the table.Glad we did this,because we would have replaced all our old stuff by now anyway.Best Luck!

[Guest The Standrings]

I was just wondering when people talk about a 20ft container. First I don't know how big a 20ft container is and secondly, when people talk of packing furniture, is that folded up/flat, taken apart or as it is? We live in a 4 bed, but I think we have very little furniture. Beds can all come apart and flat packed, Three chest of drawers (which might be flat packed), a three seater and two seater settee and the rest is all small boxable stuff, like kitchen stuff and hubby's tools, clothes and of course bicycles. I haven't got the faintest idea how much space we would need and perhaps it's too early to get a qoute, so am just wondering...

 

Don't worry i was exactly the same and actually am still not quite sure how big a 20ft container is! Obviously if your furniture can be flat packed you are not going to need as much room! We got a quote with and without certain furniture, ie should we sell our settee (same as yours) or take it and it was only £360 extra to take it. We got a quote and we had not even submitted our SS but it was really stressful to try and think how much space was needed when i did not have a clue what I was going on about, so a quote seemed the best option. We just went with Pickfords and explained we would not be moving for at leat 7 months and they were still more than happy to come. It was just an hour of my time, I showed him everything I wanted to take, he went round adding it all up, told me what size I needed and emailed me a quote! so simple and now I know how much money to put aside. Would definately recommend just getting a quote as it is one less thing to worry about. Plus visa are moving so fast, we have just been allocted our CO 13 days after submitting!!! hope this help!

Em

xx:cute:

[xzibit]

We didn't bring much, just packed up small things. Good job really because if you bring everything, you have to wait 8-12 weeks for it to arrive, and by that time you'd have probably replaced it all anyway. Plus it's awesome getting to choose a new tv and furniture lol.