Greetings and news from Down Under

Well firstly let me say that I hope you all had a great Christmas and that you are all looking forward to a great New Year.

I am currently sitting here in my friends surburban house in Sydney Australia, well firstly sorry to say but it is about 26 degrees already and only 8.30 am. Am I missing the freezing temparatures of the UK..... No, im not.

My first day here was yesterday and although ive been here before some years ago I couldnt help but look in some of the estate agents windows. Now for those of you that have been, Sydney is as you know one of the best places in the world, and no where more does the saying 'location, location, location' exist more than it does here.

My friends house is down a pleasant road in a very nice part of Sydney, nothing special but equally nothing down beat. His house is 4 bedrooms and built into a hill, so the three bedrooms downstairs that are built into the hill make them feel a little dark and damp (well in the winter anyway) Its ojnly 20 years old and has no real cutting edge design. Pleasant is the word to describe it. It has an average sized garden and no pool (which I must have a word with my friend about. Oh and there is no garage and no view.

So why am I telling you all about this, well if I picked this house up and put it next to mine, it would sell for about 300k/350k sterling (there is no pound sign on the keyboard !!!) if I were to rent it out it would get about 1200 a month. So you can now get an idea about. Well if this came on the market today here, it would sell for $1.8M thats about 1.3M sterling. Yep I fell over too and rent, well they are renting it at a mere snip of 1000 pounds a week. A bargain.

So location is still the key (in the main) I am very lucky to be holidaying here and it is impossible to not look around and think what a beautiful place to live but unless my lottery ticket comes in, I think I will remain the frustrated visitor, sleeping in the spare room.