alkristensen

We are looking in to this area and wonder what its like near to the city.

If you descibe somewhere to us our questions are:-

Is it a nice place to live. Are there markets/shops/decent eateries(independant cafes/restaurants in the area. If so then where is the best place for this to live

We are a youngish childless couple who hope to try when we get there for kids but the above are our priority for an area. We want a villagey feel with a nestling of shops like butchers,bakers,vegshop a few clothes shops and nic nac places with quite a few decent places to eat.

Any ideas anyone.

Thanks for any suggestions. Commuting time unimportant as long as we are near a bus or train or ferry into town within 3/4 of an hour bus/drive/train/ferry ride.

Thanks

al and clare

DrWho

Hi Al, how much have you got to spend...? Rent or buy...?

alkristensen

To rent at first for about £160 a week ($400)

To buy about £160,000

Have searched on realestate etc, but they are just names for me.
We are looking for 2 bed house, no apartments or land and to build or transport a housed there.

Its looking more like other areas in the country but hopewfully someone will come up with a gem. We will still liook. I dont mind renovate but nothing structural
Thanks

al

Assegai

Dee Why - just north of Manly about 45 mins bus ride and 25-30 mins by car into Sydney centre (no train stn). Loads of good restaurants along the esplannade, shops, leisure centre, RSL club etc.

alkristensen

are the house prices within our bracket please


al

Assegai

I don't know as we rented a holiday flat for 3 months. Perhaps the Internet can give u this info.

DrWho

If you'll consider an apartment first before looking at a house to buy then there's many more possibilities... Sydney's a great place and renting somewhere nice while finding your feet, etc might be no bad thing...

alkristensen

yes we will do that

but whats the point of living there and making friends for 6 months if we cant afford to live there unless in a crap area or in a unit when we have to start again in a new city with new friends all over again if we cant find anywhere in our price bracket knowing full well we can afford in brisbane.

The money we have is to buy outright. The rest of our money is to set up businesses etc.

We wouldnt consider buying an apartment as they are ok when renting as you can leave if you get dodgy neighbours but you cant when you buy unless you can afford to move out and rent out your property while you buy rent another one, which we cant afford to do.

Btw dee why cheapest house 2 bed and above is $455,000

Similar in brissie is $325,000

Why is sydney so good

al

alkristensen

and the best we can afford so far is campbelltown or sutherland shire and we havent got a clue abiout these places except that they are pretty far out of the city...... perhaps too far for us.

So far brssie is winning hands down. i still need convincing

al

DrWho

More people down here in Sydney and surrounds, keeps the prices up a bit... Dee Why is on the Northern Beaches and it's always going to be expensive... I don't know what business you want to set up but I guess it's not location specific; for $400 a week rent you can live in some very nice places... Manly, Eastern suburbs, etc... Depends what you want to do with your leisure time, etc... Sydney always going to be a bit more sophisticated than Brissie and with more going on, etc...

alkristensen

Id like eat well and get drunk for cheap like i do here in my spare time lol.

Just want to be a nice stroll to some cools shops bars etc
And 20 mins into town or so

Have found some areas of bris to look at but i want more to go off as we have 3 weeks when we get there before the cats come out of quarantine to find a rental(which will be hard in itsself).

At the moment we say we are going to rent for 6 months to see other areas and decide. But at the mo we are 80% sure we will end up in Brisbane as the prices are more suited for us so far. We aim to find out more but keep coming up with blanks.

We may just do hostels for 3 weeks to look at areas and prices, pick the cats up in our new car and drive to Brissie to live!

Thats how it feel at the mo.

boo hoo

DerekM

I thought rental prices in Sydney were shooting up due to the shortage of rental properties?

suzimc

Hi Al,

We had the same debate a while back - at the end of the day our decision was made for us when OH's company said they would keep him on, and their Aussie HO is in Sydney - no brainer. However, we are still keeping Brissie on the map for the future, as the house prices are definitely nice to look at.

I do remember when we were trying to decide though, amongst other things I went onto one of the big job sites and tried a search in each place for each of our career fields, and found that in both instances there were a lot more jobs in sydney (5 times more for one of us, 8 times more for the other!) and the salaries were much much higher too. I think the only way you can really decide if you are looking at practicalities alone is to collect all that sort of info (house prices, potential to earn etc) and work out what your disposable income would be in each place, i.e. do better salaries outway the high house prices etc. It's a pretty lengthy way of working it out, but it's the only way you can know for sure what will work for you personally.

There's also the emotional side of things, getting a feel for the place, what you want in life etc.

Suzi

utopia

Hi Al and Clair,

The Shire looks nice, visited Baulkam Hills whilst on holiday lovely houses and area, and very good schools( I think I spelt that wrong).

Hope that helps.... we are looking at Sydney too, so this thread is very useful to us also!!

utopia

Check this link out!
It seems to be around 20mins to the city by train from the Shire

http://www.cityrail.info/timetable/t...&dir=up&day=wd