Cost to move household goods US to Australia?

jharvey963- Welcome to A2K!

I have no idea what it would cost to ship to Australia, but I do know one thing. Unless you have very, very expensive furniture, or a lot of priceless antiques, it pays to sell your stuff and buy new.

I moved from the northeast to Florida, as did many of my neighbors. I shipped most of our stuff. From talking with a lot of people, I concluded that it would have been much more economical to sell the old stuff, and buy new.

I think it best to ask moving and freight companies in the US, jharvey - since they are likely to be used to doing the job - and I assume you will be using US companies until you get to Oz?

Here is the Google page I got when I searched for moving companies in Sydney:

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=Moving+companies+Sydney&btnG=Google+Search&meta=cr%3DcountryAU

Remember, you will need to buy all new electrical appliances anyway, so.............

Re: Cost to move household goods US to Australia?


Hi there,

We're moving from Washington DC to Australia in a few months (my wife's an Aussie). Unless your shipping a small amount items, you'll pay shipping cost according to space, not weight. Surprisingly, your cost will probably not vary much from mine here on the East Coast, as we're both shipping from major ports.

I'm guessing that your 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1700 sq. foot house might fit into a 20' container after you cull everything you don't want/need. That will cost you ~US$7-9K door-to-door including customs clearances and other costs. You can save money by packing the container yourself (they drop it in front of your house for a few days), or by getting your household goods to the shipping agent (U-Haul).

Since Australia uses 240V electricity you will have to replace most of your appliances, but not all of them. Lamps, for example, can be used in Australia with Aussie bulbs ("globes") and the right plug or adaptor. You can also run appliances off transformers that convert the voltage. Transformers are much better than they used to be (smaller, quiet, w/fuses), but they don't convert cycles(Hz), which run 60Hz in America and 50Hz in most other countries. That means motors will run slower in your vacuum cleaner and analog clock. However, battery chargers, computers, printers, stereos, CD players, DVD players, etc. will not be affected by the difference in cycles. That said, you want to make sure your DVD player or plasma screen TV reads PAL signals, otherwise it won't work in Australia!

Cheers,
JD in DC

We are currently in the DC region and have been considering moving to Aus. My husband and myself are in the IT field (for more than 5 yr) and have a 2 yr old son. We dont know where to get started with the whole moving thing. We have been trying to post our resume to find job there and then move once we have a job in hand. But we've had no responses to our postings yet. Is there a lack of jobs (in IT/internet field) or they just dont consider internet recruitment seriously? Whats the best way to move to Aus?

Regards,
2BRNOT2B, Centreville, VA

2B....
Welcome to A2K.

Things are not too good in the IT field in Oz for migrants, I don't think.
There has been a huge shortage of jobs in IT, and even local people who are very well qualified and with local experience are out of work. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to intending migrants.

Have a look at:
http://www.indiandownunder.com.au/
www.indiaoz.com.au

or google "Indians in Australia" or similar

But at least there's plenty of cricket here, in the summer months, and you just missed the Indians touring. Aussies are off the take on the Poms again in the next few months!

<I'm the A2K resident cricket tragic!>

Thanks for your thoughts and the links margo! Yup we were looking for such familiar surroundings.