Brisbane..Help

[julesgee]

I'm having a panic

We are moving to Brisbane in November for 4 years. It has all happened very quickly.

We have temp accommodation for the first 8 weekS but having never been to Brisbane before I have no idea what area to look for more permanent rental accommodation.

We have a 4 year old and I will be a SAHM to begin with , OH will be working in CBD and he will commute( 40 mins max)

So, what are the best areas? with decent schools? easy commute. I dont know where to start looking.

Thank you

Hi, I like the fact she is brought up with good sound morals. The school she goes to has a very strong belief that they produce children that will know right from wrong and certainly they have a very strict school basis! So uniform is policed to the extent that they have to wear the correct coloured hairband on the right day! The principal is south african and is well .... of the fearsome variety.. young dynamic and takes no s##t even from parents! His opening speech at the beginning of the year was based around the issue of punishment, no big sticks , but the principal that if your child mis behaves he will punsih them and doesnt not expect paretnt to well.... interfere... having come from a school where dd was physically bullied in the play ground and being told that nothing could be done without permission from the parents of teh the child that thumped her! I was very happy. He is a very fair man and he is resourcefull in how he deals with bad behaviour, picking weeds up on the tennis courts etc.. We moved dd after a couple of failed attempts in the state school sector and a year on we havent looked back! Fees are reasonable we pay $600 a term ( 4 terms) and every subsequent child is cheaper.

We have been in brisbane for 3 years now after I did 5 years in sydney previously ( prior to DH)!
We certainly love it here and live up on the north of brisbane... near Bribie island, which is idylic white sandy beaches and beach lifestyle. However we now have got out employer sponsered PR and bought a house on 5 acres so we have the best of both worlds! Dh works in the city and has a 45 min communte on the train so we find location wise its ideal for us! Where you choose to live depends so much on what kind of lifestyle you want, Brisbane can pretty much offer all of it.

Cant envisgae going back to blighty any time soon even for a holiday! The kids are so happy here and even dh who had reservations about the heat now complains if it gets anywhere near 15 degrees! let alone if it rains!!
If you want any more info feel free to message me!

I'm from Brisbane and you are welcome to message me if you have any questions.

In terms of 'good areas' it's a bit the same as over here - some suburbs have really nice bits and really horrible bits. There are lots of nice suburbs in the the east - try Camp Hill, parts of Coorparoo, parts of Carina. Avoid most places in the Logan area, BTW.

Um, state high schools are usually a complete minefield - when I was there, lots of knifes and drugs (sorry, but true). Get recommendations from people with children and speak to local primary school teachers, too. Although you might not still be there by the time your little one is at high school.

You will definitely need a car. All public transport is a complete and utter disgrace and you will never ever be mean about the tube again.

Good luck with your move - but please get in touch if you have specific questions

actually depending on where you are public transport is very good for us. Dh is in the city in around 30 minutes no more than 45 depending on whether he gets an express train or not. We live 10 minutes walk from the station, 5 minutes walk from good schools and high schools.

Again with education - it depends on the school. Having taught in the state system with high school - no knife culture in those schools and very little drugs if at all.

I have spent most of my life living in Brisbane - was born here, grew up here, lived a few other places including the UK and returned to Brisbane to raise my family.

Wow! Thanks! I think I will be asking a lot more questions- dh has two phone interviews tomorrow! One at 10am for a job in Adelaide and one at 9pm for the job in Brisbane. Still trying not to get too excited but failing.

I think I would prefer Brisbane but I'm not opposed to Adelaide- better cost of living apparantly?

We are really hoping for a better work/life balance. At the moment dh works in Glasgow and the commute takes him over an hour by car (due to traffic) so he is not home till after 7pm most nights, just as the kids are going to bed. We have no public transport here and have never lived in London so not used to tubes etc! All we want is for him to be able to get to work with less hassle than here and for me to be able to walk to schools, shops etc- is that possible?

We are also quite into mountain biking so was wondering how The Gap was for living? Though I'm liking the sound of Bribie Island!

I know we would definitely need a car but would we need 2 cars? What do you think? We need 2 cars here!!

If you were to live at the Gap or Bribie Island, it is possible that your husband's commute (in peak hours) would take just as long as his current commute.

It will depend on where you live as to whether you can walk to shops - there is usually a good local corner store within walking distance of most suburban places, and there is usually a park or green space, too. However, the supermarkets tend to be located in large malls, so if you don't want to waste time on the weekends grocery shopping, you may want to consider having a second car. However, from memory, cars seem much more expensive in Australia (compared to income).

Hopefully, Brisbane has caught up with the rest of the world and is now offering grocery delivery - Coles and Woolworths are the two major supermarkets for groceries. You might want to check out their website.

For household stuff, Big W and K Mart are the places to find everything you need from storage containers to towers (and kids' clothes).

Also, meant to say last time that Ray White and LJ Hooker are two estate agents that deal in rentals and have good websites for you to browse around.

actually in the ferny hills/grove/arana hills/keperra area - good commute to the city and about 5 minutes drive from a very popular mountain biking state forest area. Bushwalking about 30 minutes drive away.

We only have one car - we live close enough that dh can walk to the train station in 10 minutes or a local bus that stops outside our door. There is a grocey shop 5 minutes in either direction as well as a mall with lots of shops within 10 minues drive - actually two depending on which direction you go.

For housing ideas - try realestate.com.au

Also meant to say that it costs in the vicinity of A$400 a week for a 3 bedroom ex-council house within a decent drive of the CBD. Here's an example of an ex-council house in that price range:

www.raywhite.com/qld/holland-park/516162/

Here's something that is very close to the CBD (cycling distance) in a very cool area, if you can afford a bit more each week:

www.raywhite.com/qld/new-farm/504577/

I have lived in New Farm - it was the best place I have ever lived in Brisbane - big park, good links to the CBD via the river, nice shopping precinct, pretty decent neighbours, and close to Fortitude Valley for amazing restaurants and nightlife

Thanks everyone! I have already checked out loads of properties!!

Only thing is now the recruitment consultant is saying he never mentioned Brisbane and the job is actually in Sydney :-(

He def said a couple of weeks ago that they really needed people in Brisbane and Perth and before that he said we would be able to choose any location (they have offices everywhere- all major cities) so I did loads of research on where I'd like to go- particularll Brisbane. I don't want to go to Sydney at all- it's that last place I would choose!!

Hmm sounds like someone there screwed up. Do you have any documents that state Brisbane? I would not want to live in Sydney either. I

Sydney is fine but expensive.. and not as chilled as Brisvegas.
as eids said ferny grove etc is a close comute to the city. Most areas have there own small set of corner shops. we certaibly find running cars here much cheaper than the uk! We have 3 cars (as we have an au pair who we providde a car for). Rego includes compulsary 3rd party insurance. On top of this you need eith third party fire and theft insurance or fully comp.we pay 500$ a year for fully comp for a new hyundai imax. Different states have different car rules. We have also found cars cheaper here. the Imax cost us $30,000 for a 2009 model ith nearly no kms on it. Cars do keep there value longer here so we were surprised how expensive used cars can be. Rego is for us about $450 for 6 months... but we dont dont have any small cars. Do you need a recruitment consultant or can you just go through empolyers directly. You may get a better deal!

Oh and my only other thought is that i guess expect that most things in australia are similar to that of the uk. So your Dh is quite likely to still have about an hour commute to work and will still therefore end up with long days. I guess what we find better in the whole work life balance is that when we do have time together, holidays and weekends there is more to do and better weather .... generallly.,.. to do it in. also around here there are lots of activities for children to do and they are not expensive.

well he had the interview last night...the one in the morning has been postponed till next week.

He did really well and he's definitely throught to next round. He said he wasn't interested in Sydney, they are also recruiting for Melbourne but I'm not keen on either of those!! The guy that interviewed him said we would find Melbourne just as expensive as Sydney.

Chloe- what's rego? DH has now approached one employer directly and he is interested but that is Melbourne too. So many of the jobs advertised they don't tell you who the employer is! but yes, I think we will try to go down that route!

Rego is short for car registration - you need to get used to this bizarre linguistic tradition - every other word in Australia is shortened and then 'o' is added to the end

a lot of british expats find Melbourne more appealing and closer to what 'home' is like than those elsewhere. I think Melbourne would be a good place to live. I have loved visiting there. It is expensive though.

Brisbane can get very hot in the summer.

I know Melbourne is meant to be great- it just doesn't appeal to me that much! Plus we couldn't really afford it!! A friend lived there for a year and has told me a lot about it. However, does anybody know anything about Geelong as there is a job there and at least we could afford a nice house there!

I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens with the jobs!!