shoshana

Hi

Considering Doncaster in Melbourne and interested in anyone who lives/lived there on the area, transport, schools etc.

TIA

ozzieeagle

It's a slightly upmarket area, but god knows why. Why did you choose that area may i ask ?

Theres f all public transport out that way.

Seriously the schools should be OK, you will probably need two cars to live there... It's not that far out of the city. Got a half decent shopping center, the people there are upwardly mobile I guess....( Ahhh Edit just realised why I have a 'tude towards it.... Very competitive with each other.... You'd best buy a Beemer, or two or you will feel like sheet, and thats very important out there... It's car city after all)

If I had 1 mill (AUD) to spend which is possibly what it would cost to establish oneself appropriately in Doncaster, then I would probably uproot myself and try and get myself close to water in Sydney instead.

Hopefully someone will paint a better picture than my slightly leftwing northern inner subs view

You did say Ugly though, and I've been here 30 years so I think I've got a right to say... especially as it's less than 12 miles from me.

Petals

I live a long way from Doncaster but its a nice area of the city and its pricey like everything else that distance from the CBD and its in the East and close to the "good schools" so its popular with Chinese Australians who want top education for their children. Its got a shopping centre. Its got a drive and bus service that is you drive to a car park near the Eastern Freeway leave the car and take the bus along the Eastern into the city to work if you work there. Bus has priority lane along with cars that have more than one person in them.
Its high up and you can see across the city what else can I say its a suburb and as the previous poster said upwardly mobile although these days its probably downwardly mobile with the margin calls.

Box Hill, Burwood, Ringwood, other suburbs out that way. Rosanna, Bulleen if you want to be that sort of side.

Melbourne is such a vast place its cities within a city.

Doncaster is in the City of Manningham so you could look at this council site and see what you think of the services there.

Also you could look at realestate.com.au and see what sort of prices the property is. I know that there are Brits living there who have recently moved there and they seem happy they are on another forum.

carlap

We live in Doncaster East. Very nice clean tidy pleasant suburb. We live near 3 shopping centres, one 5 mins walk with a number of restaurants, 2 20 mins walk away (remember walk, car is 5 mins), then 5 mins drive from Westfield shopping, cinemas in Doncaster. Never seen a hoon (sometimes see tyre marks), no gangs of kids. People are pleasant, only one anti Brit comment from a drunk (been here about 7 months).

Great school for our 13 yo boy. Lots of sports clubs and activities. Doncaster aqua arena 50m outdoor pool, diving, 25 m indoor.

Bus is 30 mins to CBD (always on time), only thing is no tram and train is 10 mins drive away. Wife works at Box Hill and gets bus for 7am start. Bus is quicker to CBD than a tram (from Box Hill) and trains take 30 mins as well as they stop everywhere. We sometimes get a bus in and have lunch by the Yarra on a Sunday for $3 all day travel.

5 mins drive to closest bush - and a lot of other nice spots within 10-15 minutes, 45 mins from beach. 30 minutes from Dandenongs.

Depends what you want. This is a family 'burb. Not absolutely close, but not far from everything. Older houses from $500k for 3-4 beds on decent plots, but too many are being converted to units. But I would say more like $600 up for something decent (rather than a unit)

My only problem is that we moved from a fairly bland Bristol UK suburb to something similar in Oz

edit: life expectancy very high in Manningham (maybe 80+ for males, can't remember), so there are a few retirement complexes around.

PM me if you want any more details

shoshana

Thanks for the replies they are helpful - I have lived in Sydney before and loved it (9 years - I am a kiwi with oz citizenship) but UK hubby who only lived there 2 years wants to go to Melbourne and as a comprise to get back to OZ I am willing, plus have a brother there as well.

The main reason we are looking at that area is that we want to live in Doncaster is that it has a Synagogoue (we are Jewish) and main Jewish areas in the east ie St Kilda, Caulfield etc are even more pricer for smaller boxes.

We have a 3 year old and another on the way, so happy with family burbs, and live in Hainault, Essex (lots of chavs).

Looking at getting house on the market here in the new year and then wait a year or two for it to sell, so lots of time to plan - not even going to bother applying for hubbys spouse visa until we have to...

Thanks everyone

ozzieeagle

Ahh ok, Try Elsternwick in that case

shoshana

Nice area..but more expensive than Doncaster and out of our price range

OzSheila

Not my cup of tea (I like old houses - none in Doncaster) but nothing really wrong with Doncaster. Housing - you get a lot for your $. No transport so a 2nd car is a necessity. Westfield Doncaster (was there this arvo) has just undergone a huge renovation and is as good, as if not better, than Chadstone for shopping. Yes, there are many Asians but there is also alot of Italians, Greeks, etc who have prospered. Schools all probably good. I believe Doncaster Secondary is excellent.

HTH

BadgeIsBack

Never knew that. A lot of the due E suburbs out from the city are popular.

Do not understimate the power of the Asian community to push up prices in key locations in the middle Eastern suburbs. The likes of Glen Waverley, et al.
2 high income earners, and a sprog being pushed. I know one who is about to be made redundant on a year's salary. He's not complaining.

sr71

Plenty of other reasons too, they often have cultural/family schemes to help buy houses and also money from weddings (usually cash instead of gifts at Chinese weddings)

ozzieeagle

Yes I'm very happy that the Chinese seem to have made the Adjoining suburb to me, Preston, their Inner North Center. We dont have to go into ChinaTown for a decent Chinese or Vietnamese meal anymore... Lots of restaurants on High St Preston now, and more coming all the time.

We went here last Mothers Day... Bloody packed it was, Hence we are doing Mothers day meal out Saturday instead this year.

http://goldleafrestaurant.com.au/preston/index.htm

BadgeIsBack

I mean the Eastern burbs not innner or outer....not Middle Eastern suburbs..