Hello,

I've recently arrived in Sydney and I’m struggling to find a suburb we can afford/like.
We really like Paddington but can't afford it and the houses are a bit small.
Our priorities are basically a cafe culture feel and a "nice" area. We will also be bringing our springer spaniel over and other than Centennial Park we are struggling to find anywhere to give him a good run. (This is very important)
I work over at Blacktown; I definitely would not live there! But my wife will probably work in or around the city. Budget would be to a max of $700 pw and we have no kids.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

Any help gratefully received.


Adam.

If you like the cute terraces and cafe culture of Paddington but can't afford the Eastern Suburbs price tag why don't you try the inner west? Not sure what you'd get in Newtown or Camperdown with that price tag (and houses are small there too) but how about a bit further out like Stanmore, Petersham, Marrickville, Summer Hill etc?

Glebe has a village feel, plenty of cafes and a great dog-friendly walk along the bay.

Thanks, keeep them coming!
We did look at Leichhardt but found the plane noise a bit too much.

Are you looking for an apartment or a house and how mny bedrooms?

Ideally a house with at least 2 bedrooms if we can to start with.
commuting time to Blacktown by car is a consideration too.

Ok so I think you need to move a bit further out than Paddington if you want a house. How about Ryde? That is about 30 minute drive to Blacktown, I don't know it very well but it was somewhere we considered when we were looking around.

Is it 30 mins with traffic? My boss told me 2hrs! but I think he wants me to sleep in the office.

If it is we'll give it a look, thanks.

I have never driven it in rush hour, it says 30 minutes on google directions. So probably not with traffic but 2 hours seems excessive, I would have thouht you would be going against the main flow.

Fantastic choice of dog - my folks are at a gundog trial in West Dorset as I type!

Anyway, have a look at Erskineville in the inner west - it borders the huge City Park, and is good for several rail lines at Erskineville and Newtown, and definitely has a very cafe culture, yet still village feel. I really like it and don't live far away myself. Houses reasonably sized too.

Definitely worth a look.


S

Lane Cove, West Ryde, Homebush

I have your solution for you:

Move to the Balmain, Rozelle, Birchgrove peninsular.

It has the same Victorian era architecture of paddington, the cafe culture, the "history" and is a great place to live. Its a maze of beautful creaky old backstreets, with the bustling Darling Street runnining right through the middle. Buses to CBD take about 10-15 minutes, plus there are ferries at Balmain East, Birchgrove and Balmain.

Some of the best restaurants in Sydney in my opinion: La Boheme for Germanic/Czech feasts, Efendy for some Turkish etc

If you live in the south of the penisnsular (Rozelle) you have access to the Bay Run, which is a great 7km circuit. That will surely knacker your dog out.

Its not quite as up-your-own-arse as some of the Eastern Suburbs are, but there is a bit of a hoity-toity (sp) snobish element to some of the locals here too. They're easy enough to ignore though.

Renting is cheaper than Paddington, but the buying price has rocketed up in the last 5 years.

If you rent some of the old terraces you will have to do on-street parking. Plenty of appartments offer security parking though.

...

you're welcome

Yeah, that's a good call as well. Definitely got the cafe culture, and the soccer mums/trophy wives in spades. Some really nice parks though - Mort Bay Park runs all along the city side of the peninsular with fantastic views of the CBD. Not so sure about the commute to Blacktown though - Victoria Road is pretty much the only way in or out, so you may want to look at that.

Interestingly, Balmain is now considered to be the IVF capital of Australia...


S

Victoria Road just got worse, ironically because of the second bridge that they built to add more lanes. Got to love the old Labor governments planning policy. idiots. It now just creates a huge bottleneck going out of town, for everything inlcuding the buses.

If you leave early (7.30) you can generally miss the jam completely though. I have had reason to drive to Parramatta a couple of times for work and it takes about 25-30 minutes on a good run. Thats near blacktown isnt it??

RE IVF: I would agree with that. We moved from Fulham (IVF central in london!) to Balmain so I didnt notice the continued concentration of twin-prams being pushed around, victims of an over successful IVF session.
Now that I think about it, you are right, there's loads of in Balmain too! Lots of early 40 something first time mothers too, presumably they've taken some time out from their power-jobs before the biological clock stops telling the time properly.

Interestingly, Balmain apparently has the highest number of pubs per capita of anywhere else in Australia.
http://www.balmainbrewingcompany.com.au/about-us.php

Wow...think I need to move and make a career change to a professional sperm donor!!! Apparently I'm the biggest w@nker at work anyway!!