There are loads of IT jobs in Sydney as is a v buoyant job market here at the moment - in fact an employees dream

I landed an IT job within 1 week of getting here - a bit too soon for my liking really

cheers for all the responses, the 850k budget is because we'll get help renting a place up to that value, so I just need to check the rents in some of the areas you have mentioned.

you will generally find that the rental rate for a house will be a lot lower than if you were paying a mortgage on the same house (even assuming you had a put down, say, a 20-30% deposit)

Have a look at Domain.com.au and realestate.com.au
Domain might be better for you as you can enter a key word such as pool