Hi I am new to this site and was wondering if anyone could help me. We are moving out to Perth at the end of March that is me, husband and 17 year old son. We have never been to Perth so have no idea at all about where to live. Can anyone suggest good areas and if there are any areas to avoid.

Thanks very much
Julie

Hi, welcome to BE. I am moving to Perth in Feb/March with my two teenage children, son 16 and daughter 14. There are loads of nice suburbs to live in but it all depends on your personal needs and budget. I am still undecided about where i want to live but i am looking at Clarkson, Ocean reef and surrounding suburbs. I came to this conclusion by considering, drive time to work, drive time to beach, schools for children, budget (major factor), public transport so children can get to the city etc and facilities available. I plan to get a short term let for when i arrive and then see what rentals are available once i get there. I hope to buy a property in about a years time and i am renting out my house in the uk for the time being.

If you need a chat or want to ask any questions then just PM me, good luck with everything

Im interested to hear the replies to this post as were heading off to Perth in April this year.

How easy was it to sort out the rental in the UK, do you have a mortgage to sort etc. Hopoe you don't mind me asking but we haven't sold and need to get out May/June, been on market since Feb 07, so might have to try and rent.

Any help would be good

Thanks

Hi, I will send you a private message. If you go to the my profile section (pink bit at the top of page) you will find it there. I will send it shortly and you can ask me anything

Hi Julie,
We rent in Perth, we are in Harrisdale which is a new suburb near Canning Vale. This area is quite nice, about 30kms from city, Canning Vale is quite a new area too. We have also lived in Ellenbrook (nice), and Rockingham (OK some areas). Hope I dont get slated for saying this, but I personally would avoid Kwinana, Balga, Lockridge, Medina, Leda, Eden Hill, some parts of Midland.* Rentals here are quite hard to get, we have a shortage of properties unfortunately.

Cherry x

* Anyone who currently lives in those areas and loves it, apologies, just my personal view.

before you narrow down an area you need to think about where you need to work. do you need to be close to the city, industrial areas etc etc. Then you have to think about your budget. Do you like new homes or older more established suburbs. Perth is a city of well over 1 million people spread over a distances of about 70km north to south so its hard to narrow down an area until you have given a bit more information.

Hi,
There are lots of posts asking for info on Perth Suburbs on the site so a search would turn up loads. There is also a great website with details of all the Perth Suburbs and comments from people and crime stats..
http://www.aussiemove.com/city/city.asp?c=7&f=9
North of the river (NOR) people often say that west of Mitchell freeway is good but expensive, between Mitchell and Wanneroo road is ok and median and east of Wanneroo should be avoided... bit of a generalisation but gives you an idea. We looked at loads of places, Guildford is nice but is on the flight path to the airport so better for deaf people, Midland is like a big shopping precint, anywhere within spitting distance to the river is extortionate. We ended up in the hills, not good if you want to go to the beach everyday but great if you want more house and land for your money and live in a beautiful area... the wildlife takes a bit of getting used to and people will say 'you live all the way out there!' but it takes us less time to get into the center than people living in the Northern 'burbs as the road is really good. Public transport there is not so good though, no train. Write down what is important and then ask the question again..
Good luck

As others said, you need to have a budget, proximity to the city, desire to be near or far from other poms, near or far from the sea in mind etc. Then choose north, south or, hills. Then we can start narrowing it down for you. The dodgy areas tend to be Balga, Midland, Lockridge and that general inner east area (being further from the sea and older it is cheaper) but you can get dodgy people in good areas and vice versa. Landsdale is new and quite posh but there seem to be some bikie gang leaders there for example. The other area I would avoid is Kwinana and surrounds because of all the other heavy industry.

absolutely agree

I would rent a short term (6 months) let near where you want to work.. then take your time at weekends to search for the best place to settle...well it is what we did. Advice is fine but there is nothing like being here to know what you want.. we didn't even consider the hills when we were in England despite hours asking advice and trawling the net, rented in Mount lawley (nice but pricey) settled in the hills (even better and cheaper)..

bullscreek ,kardina, southlake,coogee, yangebup all nice areas

yangebup,southlake coogee are all nr ( max 10 mins away)the beach so get the lovely fremantle doc in the afternoon

bullscreek and yangebup all nr trainstations so good for the city

yangebup southlake coogee are all very close to freo as well

my next piece of advice is if you have kids don't rent in a suburb you can't afford to buy in.

Without sounding pedantic it's Bullcreek. Personally I wouldn't live in South Lake but the rest of the areas you mentioned are OK.

We were thinking about Fremantle, does anyone know if this is a good area and what are the secondary schools like in this area?