LIVING ABROAD TALKS #1: WHAT DO WE KNOW BEFORE WE SPEND?
Two private sessions for 15-20 families at our Hanoi Gallery on Thursday, 26 March 2026. Education pathways, career prospects, property structures, mobility planning and money movement across the UK, Australia, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Arcadia Consulting Vietnam works with accredited homebuilders, academic advisors, investment migration partners and international bankers. Our interest is that the families in the room leave better placed to make the decisions in the right order, with the right numbers before the deposit is wired.
“LONDON OR MELBOURNE? BANGKOK OR KUALA LUMPUR? SINGAPORE?”
Almost every expensive mistake in this space follows the same pattern: property first, child’s actual path second, legal structure third, tax fourth, and marriage risk never until it arrives as a bill. We have all been inside it.
The right first question is which one of those cities actually fits this specific child? A market that is exceptional for a child who is competitive, English-fluent, and thrives on being thrown in the deep end can be genuinely punishing for one who is equally intelligent but needs a more structured first step. We know the difference in our own children. We just do not always say it out loud because London sounds better in our family group chat.
There is also the sibling question nobody names clearly. The treatment of the first child becomes the emotional reference point for every child that follows. Once the eldest gets London, the second wants London regardless of fit. Worth deciding the family’s logic once, early, before the eldest finishes year one.
WE PLAN FOR THE 19-YEAR-OLD. THE ASSET MAY STAY TO 35.
When we imagine London, we picture the child at 19. We are less disciplined about picturing 30. By then this stops being a student story and becomes a household one. ONS puts average London private rent at £2,253 a month as of January 2026, before council tax, utilities, transport, childcare and the other cheerful leaks that make a family budget look respectable at lunch and tired by October.
A property bought for a student will still be on the family balance sheet when that child is 35. Singapore at nineteen is manageable. Singapore at thirty on one income, with no access to childcare subsidies and an Employment Pass floor rising to SGD 6,000 a month from January 2027 that is a structurally different calculation. Melbourne, on the other hand, is the market where the balance of proposition genuinely holds across both life stages.
A city that only works at 19 is not a family asset.
It is an expensive youth hostel with legal fees.
A FEW THINGS THAT CHANGED WHILE MANY OF US WERE LOOKING ELSEWHERE.
The UK replaced its inheritance tax domicile rules in April 2025 with a long-term residence test. Once a child has built up 10 years of UK tax residence within the previous 20, that child’s own overseas assets may fall into the UK inheritance tax net, and the exposure can continue for years after departure without anyone noticing the clock was running.
Australia banned foreign buyers from purchasing existing homes from April 2025 to March 2027. New builds are still available. But the plan many families made two years ago for an established apartment in Melbourne needs revisiting.
Singapore’s Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty for foreign buyers is 60% of the purchase price. On a SGD 2 million condominium, ABSD alone is SGD 1.2 million before BSD, legal fees, renovation and the first week of self congratulation. Singapore makes sense for families with a genuine operational anchor there including wealth management, business base and regional oversight. It is not as a yield play while the child studies.
And Malaysia: the Graduate Pass gives eligible graduates, including Vietnamese students, up to 12 months post-degree without needing an employer sponsor. You may not have heard of it yet. Malaysia is sensible when families take it long term. From 1 January 2026, stamp duty on instruments of transfer for residential property bought by non-citizens and foreign companies rose from 4% to 8%, with Malaysian permanent residents carved out.
Vietnamese families plan aggressively, move quickly and have built real things from nothing. The same instincts that made the wealth are the ones that occasionally, quietly, may make it harder to protect.
ON 26 MARCH WE ARE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION IN HANOI.
Arcadia Consulting is an independently-owned real estate investment advisory established in Singapore in 2020, with a presence across Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, China and Vietnam. We advise private clients, families and selected investors who consider real estate within the broader approach of capital preservation, lifestyle planning and intergenerational continuity. Arcadia Consulting prioritizes assets where demand is repeatable and explainable: metropolitan pied-à-terre that sit on genuine life corridors, leisure homes that operate with resilience, and branded residences matched by confident price-to-experience discipline.
The content herein and in this article is provided for informational purposes only. Nothing above or in the article constitutes investment, legal, immigration or tax advice or recommendations. Any projections, estimates and/or opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. Opinions or beliefs expressed in these materials may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Certain information above and in the article has been obtained from third party sources. Arcadia Consulting Vietnam has not independently verified such information.