getmetoaus

Can anyone recommend good family friendly suburbs to live in, in Melbourne? By family friendly I mean, safe, commutable distance to CBD with good transport links. A suburb that has lots for kids and adults to do near by, i.e. parks, beach, shopping, restaurants and bars.
Thanks

Petals

Melbourne is such a huge sprawling place how long a commute would you want?

Inner areas are highly sought after and their rents and sale prices reflect that, so what is your budget?

Would you live in a flat/unit or do you want a house?

Realestate.com.au or Domain.com.au are good sites to start with.

Even though the train is very packed these days and a bit unreliable at times its faster than tram.

Areas: Ascotvale, Williamstown, Point Cook, Coburg, Caulfield, Ormond, Bentleigh, McKinnon, Moorabbin, Kew, Ivanhoe, Hawthorn, Malvern Armadale, Glen Iris, Box Hill, Burwood, a few to start with.

Also google the suburb and you will get the council site come up to give you the facilities in its area.

Good luck.

sandiep

We have a 10 year old, 3 year old and 1 year old and live at the moment in Highett, little place with a few shops and a train station which takes you into CBD in 40 mins. we are 2 minutes walk from westfield southlands indoor shopping centre which is huge so really handy. Along the road is Cheltenham which is a cute little town and my 10 year old has gone for a year to chemtenham primary which is lovely. quite a few parks, 5 mins drive from beach, 5 mins from good family friendly swimming pool. houses more affordable here than closer to city, can pick a 3 bed up for $350k plus.

closer to beach, therefore more expensive are Sandringham, Hampton (loads of family support here) and Brighton, also a bit further from city but still good train links (all above have train stations) are Mentone, and as far as Frankston (maybe a bit too far).

We are having a house built and moving to Keysborough, which is further out from city but with a 5 mon drive to a train station. Loads of newly built houses here, but still shops, parks, recreation centre. Beach is 10 mins drive. We are having a big house built on a 620 m2 plot and it will cost us less than our UK house sold for by 100k pounds!!

You will find quite a lot of parks - they like them here and most big ones set up for free BBQ machines too, and toilets.

Good luck

bigAPE

There are plenty for all tastes and budgets. However, unless you can tell us the rough budget you have for weekly/monthly rental, or purchase (with number of rooms required), then all you'll get back is a random list of suburbs.

sandiep

Sorry, think i was being a bit misleading on price, now i come to think of it. The Highett/Cheltenham area would cost around $350+ per week rental but to buy a 3 bed place, you would be looking to spend upwards of $500k, not $350k like i said!

Petals

Wiki has very good information on Melbourne and as you will see there the area is some approx 8800 square kilometres so its a large area.

getmetoaus

Thanks for the reply's. Sorry, I was a bit vague.
We are family of 3. 2 adults and one 2year old.
The longest commute I'd want to do is 40min to cbd.
I guess to start a 3 bed flat or house is what we'd be looking for to rent.
We don't really know our budget yet, but I would say a rough budget for rental per week would be $350-$550.
I hope that narrows it down a bit.

Petals

If you join the Britvics site you will get more information from people already living in the areas around the city who may be able to give you more help being as this is a site for all Australia. Britvics is just Victoria.