Originally Posted by teza

I live in Australind, for 8 yrs now, lived in North Perth for couple of years and in Busso for a decade. I love Busso but recent stay in there, gotta say houses are much more expensive and although now a city by classification the infrastructure hasn't kept up with traffic and parking that would drive me nuts even though I already now all the back roads.

I love Australind, local high school great for my kids as was the primary schools. Not big fan of Bunbury but rarely venture there, between Eaton & Australind we have everything we need and new bridge over Collie River that opened last months shortened the trip between those 2 places from 20mins through highway or Old Coast Road to couple of minutes. Hubby works at LIA in Bunbury, takes him 20mins to get to work.

Thing I like about Australind, if you don't need to live in Perth, it's about 90 mins away but you still live the country atmosphere where it's laid back and fun, not busy and stressed. In regards to property, bit of a oversupply ATM as many FIFO workers used to live here and since the mining boom downturn, many went back to Queensland and NZ and have seen houses on the market for ages! Currently have 4 houses within a km from me to come down from 399k to 320k with no takers...

Originally Posted by Australia_bound?

Houses in Warnbro are very good value, but there are reasons for that being the case. Certainly not the worst place to live, but many issues at their schools.
I live not too far from there, so if you require any further info on the area I may be able to help out.
Have you got any work lined up in the area? Or are you looking to find a base and work from there?

Originally Posted by spouse of scouse

We used to walk for crabs in Australind when we were kids, great memories Do you get bothered by mozzies Teza?

Originally Posted by carcajou

Seen from afar, Rockingham and Mandurah can look like middle-class seaside suburbs of Perth. But they're not, they can be quite gritty and are relatively low-income areas, and aren't necessarily all that close to Perth. It also has one of the lowest percentages of people with university degrees in all of Australia.

I live in the WA regions and don't know Perth very well except in generalities, but here when people look at retiring there or moving to be closer to kids etc., the rule of thumb is look north of river first, east (Perth Hills) second, and south of river last.

When government employees out here (teachers/police/nurses etc) are looking to transfer out of the country towns, they often look at Rockingham/Mandurah because they see it as a stepping stone to get a job later on in Perth City, and also there is enough turnover in Peel (consider why that might be) that there are enough vacancies that perhaps they can get something easier than if they keep waiting for a vacancy in the City that a whole heap of people are going to apply for. Quite often they do this with blinders on, they just want out of the regions so badly and reason that Rockingham is "close enough" to the city, that they end up in worse situations post-transfer and regret it.

If we were ever going to move to the Perth Metro, quite frankly the Rockingham area would not be a place we would consider.

Originally Posted by black swan

We live in Lakelands a new suberb 10mins North of Mandurah. Previously we lived at Melros Beach, Dawsville. I agree with VeryStormy. Mandurah & Rockingham are both nice places to live
. Warnbro has a great beach. When I asked a real estate salesman why the house prices were so reasonable he said there were a lot of transient people living there. I think he meant renters.