When in Sydney, doubt what Sydneysiders do!
Culture Shock 1 : Sydney's bitter house dream
It might be good to know - Australia is the most popular destination among the Japanese willing to migrate abroad. Especially among the 50s, Australia outnumbers the US, Canada and New Zealand by a fairly big margin. Even among 20s and early 30s, Australia is quite popular especially for those who have experienced the life in Australia by working holiday visa.
What makes them wanting to leave their home ground to choose Australia as the place to live? It may not be the economical reason as Japan so far is one of the wealthiest nations in the world, limited number of migrants can actually expect better pay in Australia than in Japan. It may not be the political reason as Japan at this moment does not face any serious diplomatic crises, nor in the situation where the political dissidents are at risk of being jailed, ostracised or assassinated. Then why they want to migrate? The answer varies by their age, gender, profession and personal experiences. Among the 50s, the most common answer may be that Australia is the best place to enjoy their post retirement life by relatively cheap living costs. Among the 20s and 30s, some people may answer they are fascinated by Australia's natural beauty, relaxed lifestyle or the values such as civic freedom, democracy and multiculturalism, while some may say Australia offers better opportunities for women to develop their careers or education.
Generally speaking, the Japanese motivation to migrating into Australia is the pursuit of better "quality of life", in other words, substancial possibility to enjoy ones' daily life delightfully. The main elements of "quality of life" may be good living conditions, good natural environment, plenty of free time out of work, chances of education, access to medical/health services as well as material affluence. Many Japanese people think, the nation's post-war economic miracle certainly realised material affluence, but still falls short of meeting peoples' needs in terms of the quality of life. Especially, poor housing conditions in big cities and long working hours are always popular targets of criticism. While in the countries like Australia, according to Japanese common perception, although their per capita national income is not as high as Japan's, people enjoy good quality of life in their good sized houses, having plenty of free time to enjoy superb pastime in their great beaches and forests.
Since late 1970s, thousands of Japanese business people and his/her family members have had opportunities to live in Australia. Many of them were impressed by its great living conditions, natural environment and plentyful free time. After coming back to Japan, they started to influence people, by writing articles or answering TV interviews, how great Australia is as a place to live. In the meantime, millions of Japanese tourists, thanks to the rising Yen, visited Australia and stayed in five star hotels or spacious condos, started to tell fellow Japanese the similar things as the business people spent many years in Australia. That was how the common belief of "Australia as the lifestyle Paradise" becomes popular in Japan. Not surprisingly, throughtout 1990s, Australia was always the popular destination - probably next to the US - for Japanese nationals migrating out.
I migrated to Australia in May, 2000 that was four months before the Sydney Olympic games. By that time, I knew the real estate prices were on the rise in major cities due to Australia's pre-Olympic economic boom. But like many other Japanese, I was still dreaming of spacious houses available in reasonable prices, that was far out of reach in Tokyo, the place I am from.
However, I soon realised Sydney's real estate prices were already far more than my expectations. I remember the day of my first house hunting in Sydney, a three-bedroom terrace house in Leichhardt, looks pretty old, with land area of merely 154 m2 was asking more than $440,000. The similar one in Balmain was priced more than $530,000. In more prestigeous areas like Paddinton or Randwick, terrace houses would cost even more, some good ones would cost over a million!
It was strange. Why the houses in Sydney, the beautiful city with plenty of free spaces with only 4 million residents, cost even more than in Tokyo, the behemoth-size packed city with population of well over 20 million? Tokyo used be a notorious name for its ridiculously high living costs especially land prices. However, partly due to the burst of bubble economy in 1992 and the following decade-long sluggish economy, the real estate prices in Tokyo has been "normalised" a lot. For example, I bought a three-bedroom unit in a suburb of Tokyo in mid-1998 at the cost of $275,000 (based on current exchange rate). Nowadays, four bedroom, two level, free standing houses with around 150 m2 land in Tokyo's suburbia rarely costs more than $500,000, except for some prestigeous areas.
Another thing is, because of the exchange rate, working people in Sydney usually get paid a lot less than the counterparts in Tokyo. In my case, I have done similar sort of jobs (IT engineer) in both Sydney and Tokyo, but my after-tax income in Sydney was about 35-40% less than what I earned in Tokyo. Honestly, compared to the ordinaly income level in Sydney, the real estate prices sounded ridiculous to me. I had no idea why they can afford! But the reality is, Sydney people were well financed by margin lending or portofolio loans, rushing into house inspections and willing to pay great amount of Aussie bucks. Most of the auctions were successful in favour of the owners. In every weekend, "Domain" (house section of "Sydney Morning Herald") and some other magazines are always introducing the pictures of multi-million dollars harbourside mansions, to influence people to dream about becoming a real estate rich.
Amidst Sydney's real estate bubble - although some economists may insist it is just a boom, not a bubble - I noticed a couple of features I was totally unheard of in Tokyo. Firstly, there is no inheritance tax in Australia, that means people can buy properties for their children without being taxed, or they can inherit properties from parents and feel free to use it as the collaterals or equity of bank loans. Secondly, there is a massive influx of rich migrants to purchase Australian properties using stronger currencies. That means when A$ depreciates against other major currencies, US$ in particular, the real estate prices in Australia sounds attractive for them, regardless how expensive they are for local people. Thirdly, this kind of property investment from abroad is considered as one of the important measures to boost Australian economy. These features probably make the bubble even bigger.
Even politics are in favour of Sydney's property bubble. I remember in last November, on the day before Mr. Howard was elected as Australian prime minister in his third term, he made a speech and mentioned something like this : "Thanks to the lowest ever interest rate, average Australian family benefits $*** a month (I don't remember the exact figure)". Having all said that, Mr. Howard implied his regime has benefitted the Australians who already have properties. The new migrants like me who are suffering from rising house prises are apparently out of his scope.
I know everything has its positive and negative side. The real estate bubble and economic growth may be the two side of one coin, as Australia's relatively strong economic performance certainly owes a lot to its booming real estate market. Thus it is good and bad in nature. However, as far as I read major newspapers in Sydney, very few people complain about Sydney's ridiculously high house prices, while so many people praised Australia's good-looking figure of economic growth and share market.
In Sydney I experienced a great gap between expectations and reality. Before coming here, I was expecting something very different from Japan will happen in Australia. For example, I was thinking Australia is a kind of place where everyone can afford a big house in reasonable prices, and the people enjoy "Aussie lifestyle" that has casual, raid back, materially simple, family oriented and fun loving nature, that all sounds totally different to what we usually experience in Japanese major cities. However, after coming to Sydney, I realised my expectation was not quite right. I learnt the city life in Australia and Japan has more similarities rather than differences. In both countries, majority of city people work very hard with great desire to make money, and usually place economic success higher than other values.
When we try to describe others, especially other nationals, we tend to emphasize on the differences, pick up some remarkable (funny) characteristics then create some sort of stereotypes. In most cases, stereotypes do not have much truth because of its picky nature. For example, things like "Aussie lifestyle" and "quality of life" as I described before are all stereotypes. They may make sense when the Japanese describe Australians from outside, but we cannot expect them to make sense when we live inside Australian society.
My principle is "When in Sydney, doubt what Sydneysiders' do", so I doubted the stereotypes I had on my mind. But it is another truth that "When in Sydney, do as Sydneysiders' do". Honestly, I am on the verge of giving up my dream to buy a big house in reasonable prices in Sydney, however, I am getting serious about making money by using real estate money making techniques, as many fellow Sydneysiders do. Because I want to be rich. Of course! Why not?
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