I came to Australia as an international student from India and worked four jobs to survive. It is unfair to blame me for the housing crisis

An engineer who came to Australia as an international student says it is unfair to blame people like him for the housing crisis.

Joel Coelho arrived in Australia from India ten years ago, aged 17, to study engineering at the University of Wollongong, south of Sydney.

The 28-year-old mechanical maintenance engineer from Mumbai said Australia’s vacant rental housing crisis was more complex than simply blaming international students.

“The housing crisis affects more than just international students, personally,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

“From my personal experience, international students are often at a disadvantage due to the circumstances they find themselves in.

“They don’t really have as many opportunities or as many options as other people.”

International students are only allowed to work 24 hours a week, meaning many of them take casual jobs without the job security that comes with higher hourly rates.

“I’m not going to lie, it was pretty difficult financially coming here as an international student,” he said.

Mr Coelho said his parents saved $50,000 so he could move to Australia in 2014, the week he turned 18.

He then worked four jobs to survive, including as an Uber Eats delivery driver and working in a restaurant.

“At one point I was working up to four part-time jobs to make ends meet and living pretty frugally,” he said.

“I had several small jobs. When you arrive in the country, you have to prove that you have enough funds to support yourself.”

Mr Coelho’s comments on international students and accommodation come after Education Minister Jason Clare announced a plan to cap the annual number of international student visas at 270,000 by 2025.

The country’s national rental vacancy rate remains very low at 1.3%.

Why I came to live and work in regional Australia

Mr. Coelho worked at BlueScope Steel in Wollongong since graduating in 2018. He is now a mechanical engineer overseeing the blast furnaces that smelt metallurgical coal and iron ore at 2,000 degrees Celsius to make steel.

For him, Australia offers a better life than India and he hopes to have children and start a family in Wollongong.

“It was really the lifestyle, the work-life balance,” he said.

“Now that I’ve lived in Australia for 10 years, I can really see where the decision I made has taken me.”

Mr Coelho is in Australia on a five-year 419 skilled visa allowing him to live and work in a regional area, and hopes to eventually gain permanent residency.

The young man is an example of skilled migrants helping Wollongong maintain its steel production capacity, after the former BHP plant in Newcastle closed in 1999.

“I’m very proud to say that I work in a steel manufacturing plant,” he said.

“It’s locally made and it’s one of the only ones in Australia that exists – local manufacturing is definitely something I’m proud of.”

Lesson of wealth

He now owns $175,000 in stocks, through investments in exchange-traded funds (better known as ETFs) linked to stock market indices in Australia, the United States, Japan, India and China, preferring them to stocks.

His journey began with $1,000 in shares in Western Australian mining services group MACA, now owned by Thiess Group, and top-ups every few months.

“You’re just buying the whole basket of eggs, so if for some reason one of those companies in my basket were to suffer or go bankrupt, it wouldn’t affect my portfolio as such because I have other stocks in my ETF that would cover that cost,” he said.

The investor took a course with Paridhi Jain’s SkilledSmart group in 2020 on investing fundamentals and the importance of growing retirement.

“It definitely gives you an understanding or a brief idea of ​​what investing is and how it can be beneficial.”

Mr. Coelho hopes to grow his portfolio so he can retire from engineering at 45 and become a financial advisor.

“I believe, based on my current investment, my number at the moment is 45 – I’m still working to bring it back if possible, but if things change, that number is flexible,” he said.

“When I say retire early, I think in this context it’s to do things that I love to do and to help other people manage their finances. So I would like to retire early and then start my own business as a financial consultant or work in the financial advisory field to help other people manage their finances.

“I wouldn’t necessarily do it for the money.

“If I’m financially independent, I don’t have to worry about my paycheck.”

The tenant also aims to save $180,000 over the next two years to have enough money for a 20 per cent mortgage deposit to buy an apartment in Wollongong.

“I don’t have any concrete plans yet, but I would like to buy a house in Wollongong and live there to have a home, a place I can call home,” he said.