Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

Yes, jskogsta..... this sums up my questions too - it's not the sort of thing I would usually do - prefer to stumble my own way through - but given the timing of our move, the ENORMOUS amount of stuff to be done, and likelihood that I will end up having to do most of it while hubby watches ( :confused: ), the more I think about it the more I like the idea of having an agent doing all the house-hunting leg-work for me.... so I would be very interested in your experiences with your agent, and particularly, when you get there, if you think it was worthwhile..... thanks :D

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

Actually by chance. I had been browsing around for a few months and had found them around christmas time. To see how they were I bought their Melbourne relocation guide for a few dollars. It was pretty good. Something I will bring with me for sure as well...

Indeed they have. Actually I have mostly been in contact with a woman there and she have been really helpful. She's always on top of things and comes with her frank judgement and information. Even if that means sayin "No" to us based on our guestimates etc.

She have also been helpful in putting up a budget based on our numbers. She's drawn upon her collegues and relations to qualify the numbers, assumptions etc on that (and other things) to get a fair, objective and balanced view.

I did ask her when we started that I wanted her personal and objective meaning on everything. Even if I did "not like" the answers .. because she knows Melbourne .. we do not!

Of course; we always make the call or not .. so we are responsible for all decisions that are made, but that is the way it needs to be! ;)

True. I was very hessitant at first, but it was one way of bringing some "comfort" to her since she has had the toughest going with this move. Because of her discomfort we wanted to get a house, car, childcare, temporary location ... etc. sorted ahead of our departure. Of course I could have flown out early, but we opted not to .. since I am doing an internal transfer within my company; thus starting up immediately .. or at least almost immediately. :eek:

I know what you mean .. our move is more costly than we thought as well .. one mitigation we had to do was to do a novated lease for our new (used) car. Just so we do not have to fork out thousands of dollars upfront .. it's all about having funds in the bank, right! We do not want to spend savings on this and are letting out our house in Norway ..

Indeed! We too. That's why I have been pleasantly surprised about Heather. She and her collegues have been very helpful in locating houses, having a look at them, telling us their objective meaning based on our criteria... finding 'burbs etc. I think they have at least ended up checking 4-5 properties, but only after talking to the owners, agents etc for alot more ..

.. they have always taken at least 20+ odd pictures of the properties and shared in online albums for us to see.

The property we got now looks to be really good. This is the quote she sent us after she looked at the house:

"I drove to Mt Eliza today to view the three houses that seemed most suitable, and I am really exited to be able to say that .............. is really a beautiful home - I think that anyone would love it - it has a lot of style and class, is well finished, clean, spacious but compact, in fact I can say that it is the first time in 4 years that a house has surpassed the expectation created in the ad! The house is MUCH nicer than <other house> in real life. I am really impressed with it and can honestly say that this type of house would be in the region of $650/week - $750/week in the South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne (Balwyn, Camberwell, Glen Iris etc)."

Which is quite promising, I must say ..

Well; they are fairly expensive, but compared to the amount of work they put into it (which I am amazed actually) it can't be that expensive in the long run.

You can find a list of their standard services at Standard services

They have standard fees. I think we will pay two installments; ie 50/50% of the packaged fee. We chose their "executive relocation" package. That was 3950 AUD. Send me a PM with your email and I can send you their pdf with their services and fees.

Yes: alot of pictures. Once or twice they have had two looks at a house with two different persons .. to get a balanced view against our criteria .. so they try to give a balanced view, but of course .. it is always to prefer to look at things yourself ..

.. but for us in our situation we wanted to have lots sorted out. With two small children and a "scared" mom .. it was a good thing to do. Also since I am doing an internal transfer and will have to start working pretty fast.

We were actually selecting areas based on childcare availability. Mt Eliza and Mornington should be no problem, but the SE burbs were impossible. The few vacancies there were in places that "she would not even consider placing her children there" .. so .. they have called around .. and just now she's managing the application to the Mt Eliza house at the Peninsula School for us. Having the direct contact with them .. organising meetings and payments for us.

To be frank: I am very happy with their services. Even though it "costly" it provided value for us. BUT if I had time and were to travel alone at first I would probably think twice about it. But we know "nothing" about Melbourne. Have never been there .. only to Adelaide, Sydney and the east coast in general ...

If there are any specific questions .. I am more than happy to answer! Hope the information above was a good start ..

The kids are getting crazy here ..

.. so more later!

/Jørgen

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

Sure thing. I'll capture my "findings" and post them here eventually! Besides that; look at my previous posting. It sort of gives a short summary thus far at least.

We were also amazed on the "hugeness" of the hole darn move. Once we decided we tried to create a structure to it, but it soon became evident that there were sooooo much we had no chance of coping with. As we also wanted some kind of security once we got down there we were happy to find an agent that were very helpful ..

.. of course we were hessitant of forking out alot of dollars, but we took the chance. So far I have not been disapointed... not at all ..

Through the lease partner of the company I work for I have managed to get my hands on a 2.5 years old Nissan Patrol 3.0 diesel .. not cheap.. not expensive .. but a fair go. 7 seater .. lots of space .. and it's only run 57000 kms. One reason why we did this novated lease .. was just simply to get away of forking out deposit etc for buying the darn car. As with you, the move is getting more and more expensive (always the case!) and we will have to re-arrange the cash flow a little. Nothing that important, but it is always nice to have cash readily available. :o

What we did for the agent was to summarise our work. IE:

• Our findings on real estate sites (IE interesting properties)
• House criteria (for us: 1 floor, minimum 3 bedrooms, patio, nice new kitchen ... etc. etc. etc.)
• Must be near child care centers
• Must be a commuteable distance to the CBD (1-1.5 hours one way max - since I have the opertunety to work from home....)
• Close to shops ..
• Close to the beach (!!!!!)
• etc. etc. etc.

We tried to find out about the neighbourhoods, but there was little we managed to find out really; except that we liked like the beachside areas. The problem was always; the ones we liked were out of our budget. We set a max to 450 AUD a week ... which we managed .. but black rock, brighton, sandrinham etc.etc were easily 500-700 AUD ... :scared:

But as I mentioned: we were really looking for areas where we could get prompt and immediate child care. That was our selection criteria number one. Mt Eliza and Mornington could offer that .. (but man was I scared when I heard the costs for private child care .. bejeesess .. :scared: !!!) ..

Hope this accounts for something!

/Jørgen

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

Thanks so much for taking the time out to post all of this - it is so helpful, especially in those slightly demented moments when I kid myself the move is all going to go smoothly...!!! Perhaps if we are to end up as near-neighbours you will be able to laugh at me when I arrive having gone through the moving process... entirely grey and probably no longer capeable of speech!!!!!

It's interesting that you comment on how expensive childcare is - I am a childminder in the UK and MAY look to continue when we move (in fact ther seems to be a little clan of hoping-to-be-ex-childminders heading Melbourne's way).... the only information I have been able to find out is a suggested rate of $12 per hour for 2 children, i.e. $6 each...... I'd be interested to see what the childcare centres charge.....

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

:D I guess! Would be nice to meet up though when we're settled and all!

It's daunting for sure, this whole move. I guess these things are sort of the most drastic events throughout ones lives. It brings out alot of good things, but also it can be really scary ..

Ah! I have no idea what childminding would be, but I've only been quoted hourly fees in child caring centers. They can range from 30-80 AUD/day. At least from what I have heard. We've budgeted with 60 AUD/day. With two children five days a week, it soon becomes a costly affair. On the other side; our impresstion is that the kids have so much fun with it.. and it keeps them occupied as well! Our rough calculation tells us that we will nearly halve the costs for care once they get into pre-school.

We checked with the Peninsula (Mt Eliza house):

"Mt Eliza House is still $60/day or $255/wk for childcare. They only go onto $6300 once they progress to Kindergarten at Peninsula School."

Oh well. We'll see. We're crossing our fingers that we get into the Mt Eliza house quite fast.

Sidetracking: I am actually contemplating taking up biking again. Nothing too serious, but perhaps a small 600cc bike to use occasionally to and from work. We'll see. Would be good fun though! :p

Cheers,
Jørgen

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

Andy which state school was the zoo? Was it also in Mount Eliza? This is exactly what we want to try to avoid. Did you find the Penninsuls achool approachable, we have been in touch with them as we were going to submit applications for our boys but want to make sure that we put them down for the right years, they have all the boys details, school reports and references and emailed us to say they would look at it all and advise us on the years for them, that was on the 5 May and we haven't heard from them since!! Not that impressed, but then the Mount Eliza Secondary college haven't replied at all!!!!!!!!! It is all very frustrating, seems to me that although we have our visas schools aren't interested unless your already in the country. :( By the way any news on the house you were talking about for rent? :)

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

Hello Smartins,

Dont worry the zoo wasn't in Mount Eliza. Don't want to name it on here for obvious reasons. Our kids are in the ECC (early childhood centre), yours from memory would be higher up the ladder. We did find the ECC very approachable but we were already here. Just bear in mind that the school is very busy but it wouldnt harm to give them a nudge or two.

Have emailed the owner of the property, when I was there last weekend she couldnt find the photos on her computer, might have to take some more. Will be in touch when I have a reply.

Andy.

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

Thanks for this Andy, its all staring to get really real now, we are waiting to exchange on our house and I'm getting a bit jittery this end, hope its not cold feet!! Once we exchange I'm sure we'll calm down, but its all seeming such an immense move all of a sudden. I'll email the school again, didn't before as I know they're busy and didn't want to push too hard. Problem I have is that the eldest 16, doesn't want to go to a private school, he's worried it will be full of spoilt brats and that he'll be out of place. Keep trying to convince him that Aussies schools aren't like that, but don't really know myself!! He knows I've never been there to see. When your talking of spending $15,000 a year to send him and he doesn't want it, makes the decision even more difficult!

If I could convince myself that they wouldn't be disadvantaged by going to state school, I'd seriously consider it as an option at the moment. Were lucky our kids do really well at school and want to go on to uni, but the cost of all this is giving us some very sleepless nights, we may have to make a choice about the house we want and something much smaller, (probably too small, especially when family and friends come) to pay for the fees!!

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

Hi
Just PM'd you!
:)

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

Smartinis - I'm with you all the way on this :eek: - I seem be spending every waking minute on the internet trying to find out about the local schools, find something that looks great.... and then a huge great hole seems to appear in my plan somewhere!

On that vein, does anyone have any information on good primary schools around Mount Eliza, Frankston South or possibly even Langwarrin... looking for something that has a good 'G & T' programme and is good for sports (everything the UK school they're at is not!!!)

Also, anything on Mount Erin or Langwarrin Secondary Schools - trying to find somewhere that genuinely has a good enhancement/acceleration/whatever programme for bright students... our high school here says all the right thing but despite being on the 'G&T' register, my daughter's maths teacher is all at sea and she has basically slept the year away!!! :(

Not looking for a pushy school - but trying to avoid my lot "switching off" and learning that there's nothing to be gained by trying...

Any insider information, ideas, gossip.... very gratefully received :)

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

Will let you know if I find out anything new, looks like several of us are in the same position, will be easier when one of us actually gets there, then we can really help the others out. We won't be there for several months yet though and probably won't have the internet for a while even then, computer having to go on the boat. Going to hate being without it from end of July hence my panic to get some info now!! May have to invest in a laptop, more expense!!! :(

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

[QUOTE=Smartinis]Thanks for this Andy, its all staring to get really real now, we are waiting to exchange on our house and I'm getting a bit jittery this end, hope its not cold feet!! Once we exchange I'm sure we'll calm down, but its all seeming such an immense move all of a sudden. I'll email the school again, didn't before as I know they're busy and didn't want to push too hard. Problem I have is that the eldest 16, doesn't want to go to a private school, he's worried it will be full of spoilt brats and that he'll be out of place. Keep trying to convince him that Aussies schools aren't like that, but don't really know myself!! He knows I've never been there to see. When your talking of spending $15,000 a year to send him and he doesn't want it, makes the decision even more difficult!

Hi my Sisters Stepson has just started at the Peninsula School at the start of the year, he is 12-13 and went to a pretty rough comprehensive school in Essex before his move and he has settled in very well and loves the School. My Sister said that the Mums have there fair share of 4x4s ( she is a fine one to talk) but they are all very nice and they have a lot of social events for the parents.

John

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

[QUOTE=jond]Thanks for this, have to admit I only have good to hear of the school, however at the end of the day it will depend if we can get them in and then whether we can afford it! Still great to hear any news. :) :) Thanks.

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

Hi

My two youngest go to Kunyung Primary school, in Mount Eliza , I would thoroughly recommend it. It has a great reputation. But saying that you cannot go wrong with most schools in the area.

Caz

Re: Mt Eliza question for people living thereabouts
 

Wow! We're here! Just waiting for our house to be vacant ... getting it on the 5th of July! The area is awsome ... no second thoughts at al ..

.. so .. anyone here??! When are people arriving and all?! I know caz is here (right?!) ...

I guess we should do a meet-up when people have arrived and all?! ;)

/Jørgen