Originally Posted by Grayling

Yatala is also easily commutable from The Gold Coast....at least the Northern part.

Redlands Bay or Victoria Point would also be places worth looking at.

Originally Posted by Jensanco

Thanks Asprilla, last comment wasn't directed at you.

I think if he got a job in Yatala the commute from Bayside wouldn't be too bad. just having had a look at the map. Though I've been told to avoid the school in Mount Cotton :$ - there was me thinking the area looked nice but a couple of people have said the school is terrible :$

It is very hard without having a job to go to isn't it?

Thanks Again

Originally Posted by Jensanco

Asprilla I'd love to.
we want to manage with one car if possible so having shops, generally good schools, parks, drs, pharmacy etc all in one area would be ideal.
I quite like the look of the North Lakes area but obviously I need to be realistic hubby wants to avoid an hours commute if he can

Jen

Originally Posted by JAMFC

Hi Jen

I would say that if you end up in North Lakes you will definitely need a second car - it is a massive area and most of the house are a long way from the shops, schools etc.

Cheers

Originally Posted by Jensanco

Asprilla I'd love to.
We were actually destined for Melbourne for a job but having sold the house we contacted the company hubby would be working for to say we'd sold and would be starting to make arrangements to get out there and did they have an exact date they'd like hubby to start and they replied saying they'd already given the job they'd said would be his on arrival to someone else - was a bit upset as they could have at least emailed to tell us!

Hubby has two possible positions just South of Brisbane? One at Yatala and one in Richlands, but we don't know if we'll find out before we get out there if he has managed to get one or neither of them :$. Not the best situation to be in really but there you go. Hubby is happy to do any job until he can get a position in his area of work but picking up just any job in the UK isn't easy so not sure about Australia.


With an uncertain job position we really don't want to pay more than about $450 per week for a rental, we have 4 children but don't have a problem with 2 of them sharing at least initially so a 4 bed min would be great, don't want an acreage or anything but enough room for the little two to play in the garden would be good.
I know the potential jobs are south of Brisbane but I'm leaning more to the North, I did look up a few schools in the Gold Coast??? area and was shocked really by the reviews for around half of the schools I looked into with comments like the school having serious bullying problems, and the worst one being that there was problems with knives being taken into school :$ and these would have been fairly good commute if hubby were to get the job in Yatala. He would be working shift work for either so perhaps traffic would be less of a problem. ( I appreciate it's only a handful but they would have been the places we'd be looking at commute wise to Yatala that would be a walk to school for the kids.

I'm not daft I know there can be a few louts even in the nice areas, but we'd prefer to live somewhere that is on the whole, family friendly, good infrastructure, we want to manage with one car if possible so having shops, generally good schools, parks, drs, pharmacy etc all in one area would be ideal.
I quite like the look of the North Lakes area but obviously I need to be realistic hubby wants to avoid an hours commute if he can

Jen

Originally Posted by lkquick

We live in Forest Lake which is just south of richlands about 5 mins away, its a really nice area and we like it so far, very easy to get into Brisbane if you need to and quick onto motorway to get to the coast.

Originally Posted by fish.01

It is confusing because when referring to a city some people think it refers to the city council area, eg Brisbane City Council, when in most official cases the term Brisbane refers to the metro area which is far larger.

Melbourne and Sydney have exactly the same issue but this is mistaken in Brisbane more because the Brisbane City Council includes more suburbs than the Melbourne or Sydney City Councils so it is more obvious in those cities. Brisbane is no different to these cities in that regard.

So unless someone is specifically referring to the Brisbane City Council area, officially the term Brisbane refers to the Brisbane metro area which includes all of the council area's in Kim's link:

Brisbane City Council
Ipswich City Council
Logan City Council
Moreton Bay Regional Council
Redland City Council
Scenic Rim (part)

This means that the Redlands is in Brisbane and so is North Lakes, just not part of the Brisbane City Council.

Originally Posted by fish.01

Yes, Ipswich City Council. But all Australian capital cities are amalgams of cities in their own right. That's how it works.

From memory the Gold Coast is counted as a separate city because it is self reliant enough to justify it. They base this on a bunch of things including the flow of people for employment etc.

Blame the boffins but this is how it is done, otherwise Melbourne's population will have to drop back to 93,000

Originally Posted by donna

i would say rent somewhere in the city for a couple of weeks and then spend a few days driving around to find out which surburb u like when u get here.By then u will also know where he will be working.Good luck

Originally Posted by Jensanco

Thank you Grayling.

I gave suburbs around North Lakes (Moreton) as an example of trying to find out about what the different areas were called.
We currently don't have a definate job to go out to - there are possible jobs that we're hopeful for but possible isn't definate is it!
So I'm trying to keep an open mind and it's really helpful to know should hubby get the job in Yatala where the nicer suburbs are in the Gold Coast/ Bayside?
Same with Richlands.
An should something come up north of Brisbane in the moreton area it's gonna be really helpful to know the good suburbs there!

Originally Posted by LouiseR

We live in Murrumba Downs until Monday - we've just bought a house in Mango Hill which is the suburb over the road from North Lakes.

Murrumba Downs is nice, 2 minute drive from the gateway which is really handy for commutes.
Kallangur is a bit shitty. Sorry to anyone who lives there, but we lived there for a year - it was a bit crap and it's got a dodgy reputation.
Bray Park/Strathpine - Ok - bit bogan and not overly close to the motorway.
Warner is nice.
Petrie is ok
Lawnton bit bogan and parts can easily get flooded
Dakabin - bit far out
North Lakes - some nice house, some small houses, traffic is a bit heavy around school times but good location as close to Westfield and the motorways.
Mango Hill - obviously we like this suburb - we've just bought our house there !
Rothwell - ok in some areas not in others
Deception Bay - AVOID - bad bad reputation...

I'd only live in Murrumba Downs, North Lakes or Mango Hill out of all them.

If your hubby is working in Yatala I wouldn't recommend any of the north side suburbs - I work in Cannon Hill which is 30kms south east of where I live and my commute at 7am takes approx an hour.

Good luck with the move - hope all goes well

Originally Posted by Jensanco

Thank you Louise.

It's hard as there is no job right now to go out to only possibles, but I really appreciate the suburb advice - it's really helpful.
I'd love it if hubby could get something north but if he's working south then south it will be.
Can't get much better recommendation than you buying a house somewhere - that would be a huge thing for us.
Do you mind me asking if you have kids? and if you put the kids in school, got uniforms etc paid fees and then moved and had to do it all again?
We really want to place the kids in a school as early after arrival as possible to not only help them settle in but so we can get on with looking at rentals, and jobs etc. But I don't really want to be getting it all sorted then moving again

thanks again