If I would know anything about mortgages for expats, I would have surely responded, as would many others on here I think.

All I know about mortgages for expats is that it's not very easy but that it is certainly possible (I once heard someone mention HSBC but I forgot who and also can't recall if their experience was positive), but beyond that I have no knowledge to share.
Also, I would be more wary to recommend a financial service than I would for example a moussaka recipe, since the impact it can have on someone is pretty huge - if someone follows my recipe the worst thing can that happen is that they eat a mediocre meal (although it's hard to mess up a moussaka), but if the financial service I recommend turns out to be bad it can impact someone's retirement.

You've probably already Googled it and are looking for first-hand experiences and recommendations here.
Perhaps try a large general expat group (so not specifically for teachers) on Facebook or Reddit instead and ask for suggestions there, as you might have more luck there with a bigger audience.
In my experience a lot of ITs put off buying a home because they haven't settled on where to retire, and of the ones that do own a house a sizeable share will have purchased it while still in their home country.

I suspect that I'm included in what you describe as the 'most vocal ones', but it's not chest thumping for me - it doesn't do anything for me what another anonymous person thinks of my anonymous forum persona. I'm honestly trying to help where I can, which is my main motivation, other than asking the occasional question myself.
My high post count (currently #6 in the number of posts-ranking) is unfortunately in large part due to me pushing back against some things that are posted by a certain forum member, things that I believe to be incorrect or (in my view) immoral, and I do this mostly because I don't want teachers new to the forum to think these things are true or normal. I strongly suspect members like @Thames Pirate or @Sid have the same reason for engaging.
I admit it does go on for far too long in a lot of threads (hard to deny really), but regret about engaging him often comes too late, since messages can't be deleted or edited a few minutes after posting. I do think untruths should be countered but there are smarter ways to do so without getting sucked into page-long debates that do little to help the OP.

I hope you find a way to finance a property.

charle55 wrote:
> Hi all,
> I am new here and excited to be the part of this community:)

Welcome.
I would advise to check forum 1 ( viewforum.php?f=1 ) instead of this one (forum 2), since this forum sees almost no action. At the moment forum 1 is very slow as well btw.

It's all about the ratio vacancies vs. jobseekers.
Not sure if it'll be better than during the regular recruiting cycle, likely it will not. So yes, there will be jobs, but there will be other teachers looking to get those jobs.
It might be that there will be less competition from other Southern hemisphere domestic teachers looking to go abroad, as during turbulent times they will be less likely to uproot and go international, so that might work in your favor. Being very picky about location will obviously not make it easier though.
Good luck!

PsyGuy wrote:
> It might help you feel better that often the worst aspect of IE an IS does
> is HR.

I agree with @PsyGuy.

I know plenty of schools that are very good but have a HR department that will sometimes drop the ball. I think a bad HR department alone shouldn't make you disqualify a school. However, in my experience, a good HR department does usually mean the school is generally well-run.
I'm currently at a school with a very good and pro-active HR department and at times it can really make your life a lot easier.

PsyGuy wrote:
> @sonicsnake
>
> So not having a plan to cover for HR is a reasonable excuse for not doing
> HR?

I agree. There's no excuse. At the very very least they could have an out-of-office reply explaining that it might take a while before they'll reply, but it's not very hard to do a bit more than that.

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Helen Back
>
> No, actually it is true. Online updates arent new editions or publications.
> The third edition was published in 2022.

I think Helen meant that with a new print run (not a new edition) there can be small updates to keep it up to date.
He just won't call it a new edition, because they're small edits.
So that third edition would have multiple print runs, all of which will contain small updates, and the one most recently printed will be most up to date of course.
It's actually not very uncommon.

Ah, 'retail clients', so wouldn't affect (most) teachers anyway.
But odd indeed, although 'local legislation' means at least it's not Saxo policy.

Most people I know (the ones that know their stuff) slightly prefer Interactive Brokers to Saxo, but both are apparently good options.

I only know three teachers that went back home to teach, but at least two of them needed a reference from their international school.
Plus, if you want to get back into international teaching, it would be good to have parted on good terms at your last IS.

There's no real downside to informing them in November. Whenever I did this there was no 'being on the outs' for the rest of the year.

> Interestingly enough, they don't allow clients residing Yukon, Ontario and
> Newfoundland & Labrador.

Are you sure?
If you select 'Canada', and then 'Yukon', it seems you can just go ahead and proceed with your application.
I assume they would either not give 'Yukon' as an option to select, or inform you you can't open an account after choosing 'Yukon'.

I haven't gone further than the second screen because otherwise I might end up having an account at Saxo (plus I'm not from the Yukon territory), so maybe the reveal doesn't happen until later in the process.

Maybe I'm missing something, but why wait?
The OP gave his word to a school, but said they've since changed their mind: they don't want to work at this school after all.
If there's a chance the school will want to hurt the teacher's career, for example by informing SA, that chance will increase with every day they don't inform the school they've changed their mind. Yes, the school will ultimately be ok, but their attitude towards you can be managed by how quickly and with which message you will inform them. If I was an admin, and a newly hired teacher would inform me a week before the start of the year, I would be very motivated to make sure other schools and Search would know to avoid this teacher. However, if I was told early May and I the reason given was somewhat acceptable, I would think 'Darn!' and then move on.

How would SA find out?
The job wasn't listed on SA, and since they weren't involved I doubt the school will think to report you to Search. They might not even know you're on Search, and if they are, they might not want Search to know they recruited a teacher who is on Search without telling Search that they did.

I do agree with @sid: tell the school you're backing out in a respectful way with some apologies thrown in, and try to make them understand why you're doing it (assuming you have a good reason to go back on your word). Do it as soon as possible because they need time to find someone else - every day you wait they will be more pissed.

teachingoverseas16 wrote:
> I heard through the grapevine after some digging that UWCSEA does not have accurate
> salaries posted on Search and other forums and that the actual packages are higher
> than posted. One person also told me she believed they offered a 13th month which
> doesn’t factor into the base salary where SAS does not offer that. Can’t speak to the
> accuracy of that, though.

That's also what I heard - that the salary is higher. I thought that perhaps they lowered it since then, but your explanation makes more sense.
Their profile used to (as in: around 5 years ago) include the sentence "Annual Gratuity based on 20% of gross salary (not including housing allowance)", with about the same salary in the profile as they list nowadays.
Back then it all (including that gratuity and housing) came to around 100K per annum AFTER taxes (which are around 15%), if I remember correctly. Of course it depends on where you are on the pay scale and having kids will also affect this.

Yes, the “no teachers above 35” is incorrect. All people I know that currently work there are between 35 and 55. There might still be an imbalance (my sample size is small), but it's not that you won't have a chance there after you turn 36.

I know a few people working at UWCSEA, and all them enjoy working there. They do indeed work hard though (some of them harder than they have to because they just can help themselves), although not 12 hour work days.

Not sure if I'm correct, but it does seem the salary at UWCSEA has dropped a bit, or maybe the other two of the top 3 schools there have just increased theirs significantly, leading to a bigger gap.

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Heliotrope
>
> Data doesnt have an opinion. The interpretation of @Heliotrope isnt a
> property of the data.

I'm saying the data doesn't support your opinion.
You say it does.
We disagree.

And another predictable reply that usually follows or accompanies your previous one.

I just realized I'd previously said I'd stop replying to this topic, so I'll try again.
Have a great day, and apologies to the OP, but I think you got your answer already before we (@PsyGuy and I) let this spiral out of control. I'm sure @shadowjack got to finish his bag of popcorn after all.