moving costs from Perth Australia to Doha | ExpatWoman.com
 

moving costs from Perth Australia to Doha

parkclark
127
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 04 July 2012 - 10:53

Hi there, this is my first post so I have lots of questions. Sorry if I bore any of the member who have seen all these questions before. Thank you in advance for your patience. My husband has started negotiations for a job in Doha.. Just looking for information on moving costs to ship a 30 mtr container to Doha from Perth Aus. Also,any updated information on cost of living from people who have recently moved there . eg how much to get utilities hooked up, or are the usually included in rents? If there are any others who have moved from Perth or Australia to Doha, I would be interested to find out how the cost of living compares. (The cost of groceries and housing are pretty high here in Perth). Rent - payment of 1 yr's upfront, do most employers help with that? Cars, do employers give interest free loans to buy? What do most ladies wear since the elbows & knees are to be covered - long dresses/skirts or pants? Visa runs - eg to Dubai for a weekend - what would an estimated cost be for that? Do you pay or the employer? What areas are the main expat areas? We would be looking for a 3 bdrm apartment, furnished and possibly serviced. We are a couple in mid 50's, children grown so they would only be visiting from Canada annually. Thanks again. I would really like it if we ended up moving there. Perth has been great but , we are up for new adventure.

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GinaM
514
Posts
EW GURU
Latest post on 07 July 2012 - 14:33
QR2000 electricity deposit and (if you get one) QR1000 alcohol licence deposit - both refundable (but make sure you keep the receipt from the grog shop as you need to give them that when you leave to get your deposit back).
parkclark
127
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 07 July 2012 - 12:13
Thanks again ladies for the great information. Are there many deposits to pay in advance , besides rent, eg: telephone, water delivery satalite package etc.? .
GinaM
514
Posts
EW GURU
Latest post on 05 July 2012 - 12:18
We've always lived in unfurnished places - we brought everything with us except for whitegoods. I'd probably get rid of tvs and stuff like that too if I was coming over now as those things are easy to get here, relatively cheap and the sockets are different so it saves adaptors (by the way - bring adaptors with you - the ones here are beyond dreadful! Cheap things that fry your goods!). There aren't really any expat areas as such - or more to the point there aren't many areas that expats don't like in. Most people live near work/school. I guess the main areas are around Villagio/Al Waab, West Bay/city, around the airport and around Landmark. Clothing - most of the shops are UK, European and US ones - like Next, Mango, Gap, M&S, BHS, Reiss, H&M, Top Shop and so on. If you're not familiar with them just google them - you get pretty much the same here as in the home countries. You'd be suprised at some of the clothing that you can get here...for the life of me I can't figure out why people would by some of the stuff since you wouldn't be able to walk out the door in some of it! :) I always buy bras and bonds undies when I'm at home...I'm not sure if us aussies are built differently but even the M&S bras just don't work on me! :) Lots of people complain about the shoe shops here...I'm a bit of a shoe fiend though and buy designer shoes at one of the local stores (Salam) during their twice a year sales - you can get the most incredible bargains (up to 90% off). Re phone and cable - cable TV is about QR220 a month for a standard package and it is absolute sh*t but what can you do! They just play the same things over and over. We ended up getting an Apple TV on top of the 2 different cables that we have (showtime and mosaic) and still don't have things to watch half the time (although my 7 year old is always happy!). Local phone calls are free, most people use Skype for international and my mobile bill is probably on par with what it would be in Australia. Hope that all helps!
RachelA
1326
Posts
EW OLDHAND
Latest post on 05 July 2012 - 09:25
Clarins is definitely available! I live in an apartment tower in the West Bay (near city center). Our fully furnished 3br is 15000/month. A friend in the same building pays 13000 for the same unit unfurnished. In our case the AC costs are covered, and our electric/water bills are about QR 150-200 per month. Just to give you an idea.
Jonners
263
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 05 July 2012 - 09:05
Hi Parkclark, Quick reply for you re rental costs. DH and I used to stay in a 3 bedroom furnished apartment in Beverly Hills Al Rayyan - cost was 12,000 riyals p/m. We now stay at the Pearl in an unfurnished 2 bedroom apartment (bigger than the 3 bedroom) - cost is 13,000 p/m. The only contents when we moved in were the fridge freezer, dishwasher, washing machine and cooker. We bought our furniture in Qatar - its not my ideal choice but its absolutely fine and we should be able to sell it once we move on. I'm a fan of the minimalist look so we didn't have to spend too much to furnish the place. You will find somewhere great, I'm quite sure. Best of luck to you and your DH! :)
DebK
453
Posts
EW EXPLORER
Latest post on 05 July 2012 - 07:38
Activity - Ladies groups - In previous postings I have belonged to a mahjong group, a Canadian group and a neighbourhood ladies group . I can't seem to find out much on the different groups there. Are they different for maybe each area that people live in and not city wide? /quote'> There is a Canadian group that used to have get togethers (look up Canadians in Qatar on Facebook) but apparently due to a lack of people willing to plan events it's been pretty quiet lately. I believe they are going to try and get it going again in September. (Even though I'm Canadian I have never gone to any of their events but I do know some people who have.) Plus -- you can always start your own gatherings. :)
parkclark
127
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 05 July 2012 - 06:14
Thank you all for the great information. I guess we need to make some enquiries to the employer about what they will be covering/offering. I guess I misunderstood the rental process and it is just the post-dated cheques that you need to supply in advance. Thanks for clearing that up. We have been thinking more about the housing , sounds like it might be better to get an unfurnished place and bring our container of household goods. I haven't looked yet, but are there many unfurnished apartments available? They should be less expensive and with just the two of us I don't think we need a villa/house. Does anyone else rent an unfurnished 3 bed apartment and be able to tell me approximate rents and what is typically included? When we move to Malaysia we arrived with a few boxes & suitcases & we moved into a fuilly furnished 3 bdrm apt . 5 yrs later we left with a 20 c/mtr container (bought a couple custom made furniture items) . We will now be coming from our own fully furnished 4 bdm house here and the thought of selling alot of our stuff is not only a headache but sometimes you don't get much either. It would be easier to just downsize some and move it with us - have to negotiate that in our contract I guess, or more discussions with my DH. GinaM - was your villa unfurnished? What are the main expat areas? I don't know yet what area the company office will be in so that makes it hard to determine some of the costs. What is the avg cost of the cable/phone/internet package - (international shows/movies ). Thanks Nosey Norah for the other thread, I will check it out. Clothing - I suspected it was much like Malaysia but I think they are still a bit more liberal than Doha so will have to start adjusting my wardrobe some. Too bad, a shopping trip may be required prior to the move. Activity - Ladies groups - In previous postings I have belonged to a mahjong group, a Canadian group and a neighbourhood ladies group . I can't seem to find out much on the different groups there. Are they different for maybe each area that people live in and not city wide? Cosmetics - do any of the stores there carry Clarins? I hope so since they are a global company. Thanks again,
GinaM
514
Posts
EW GURU
Latest post on 04 July 2012 - 13:17
Who told you you have to pay a years rent up front? Its illegal for company's/landlords in Qatar to do that and I don't know anyone who has ever been asked for pay a year up front. What happens is that they get a years worth of cheques (or for example with our last lease we signed for 3 years so had to write out 3 years of post dated cheques) which they then hold and cash each month. The rent is very expensive here. Not sure what you are looking for but say for example for a 3 - 4 bedroom villa you would be looking around QR15,000 plus as a benchmark. In terms of groceries - you won't get the variety (or freshness) of Australian supermarkets but it is no more expensive here. Some things are more but then some are way cheaper than Oz. When I go home (to Australia) I tend to get shocked at how much it costs me at the supermarket. Schooling (if applicable) - you can check on line - major schools are DESS, Doha College, Sherborne, Parkhouse. They tend to go from QR30,000 a year up to over QR70,000. Electricity/water - for us in a 4 bedroom villa with pool we pay from about QR300 a month in winter to QR1000 a month in summer. I've been here 6 years though and have acclimatised quite a lot so am not a huge user of ACs. Cars are cheap and petrol is cheaper than water! :) (QR1 a litre...makes my friends back home cry!). Eating out is probably pretty much on par with back home in terms of cost and grog (from the grog shop) is slightly more expensive (around QR170 for a case of beer, QR60 for an ok bottle of wine). When we moved here we brought everything that we had from home and it was the best thing that we did as it made here home straight away. I guess it depends on how long you are planning on coming for though as to whether that is a viable/sensible option or not (in saying that we didn't intend to still be here 6 years down the track!)
wuffles1183
1996
Posts
EW EXPERT
Latest post on 04 July 2012 - 11:48
Do you really need such a big container if you are looking at fully furnished places?-not sure if we were lucky but our company apartment had everything down to the last teaspoon-which was just as well as when we came from Australia we had a less than generous 40 kg relocation baggage limit from the company. Mind you when we eventually go back we may well need a part container-amazing what you accumulate!
Nosey Norah43259
196
Posts
EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 04 July 2012 - 11:31
Hi there, we are also most likely moving over in the next month or so and have a lot of the same questions to be answered. We are moving from Dubai and have previously lived in Bahrain so maybe have a head start already being here in the region and done a move already but happy to exchange info and help each other out where we can. Last year there was a very organised lady who moved from oz to Dubai and had a great breakdown of costs which I have recently been reading through again, you can find it at http://www.expatwoman.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=156959. I know that Qatar will have different costs for housing, visas etc but maybe it's a good place for you to start and help with starting your own list of costs and maybe bring up a few things we hadn't thought of. Maybe some of the ladies on this forum who have already moved over recently can help us out with comparable costs??? TIA
DebK
453
Posts
EW EXPLORER
Latest post on 04 July 2012 - 11:29
Many of the questions you ask are dependent on the employer. For example, our employer pays for accomodation and includes water/electric. We only pay cable/phone/Internet. My husband's employer does not help with car loans. Those are the responsibility of the employee. Also, I don't know of any spouses working for my husband's employer that have had to do visa runs. We all arrived at the same time as our spouses and received our RPs just a few weeks after our spouses. As for how to dress -- I will often wear capris (or crop pants as they are sometimes also called) that come below the knees and regular t-shirts. At my husband's place of work women must wear sleeves that come below their elbow, but outside of work the guideline provided by the company is that shoulders must be covered. For myself at work my shirt provided by my Qatari employer is also normal t-shirt sleeve length. At work for myself capris/crops are allowed as long as my knees are covered. That being said, during Ramadan I tend to wear trousers rather than capris and also tend to carry a light jacket with me that has full length sleeves. Why? Simply out of respect for the Islamic holy month.
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