Move to Brisbane?

Tell me what to do EB.

I'm feeling very over Sydney.

Not sure what's going on, I'm just finding it so busy. Everywhere we go it's packed all the time. We live 10km from the CBD.

I think a lot of it is that I've fallen out of love with our suburb. It's just a bit rough and I was personally targeted by criminals last month. There also isn't a great primary school option, which we need by 2023. I'm sick of our 100 yo house. I want something newer, maybe even a pool.

I've looked at moving further out or renting in a better inner city suburb, but I just can't find anything that works. It's all so stupidly unaffordable and getting worse.

I just don't know what to do. We have a family member in Sydney, but we don't see much of them. We don't really know anyone in Brisbane. That doesn't bother me, we would meet people.

I think a big part of it is that I would like a much much smaller mortgage, but I still want to live in Australia and be near decent job opportunities.

Am I dreaming? Could I get a 4b house within 20km of the CBD for under a mill?

The only way I can see us financially surviving in Sydney is if I work full time as well, and with three little children, it's just so bloody hard. Not to mention our childcare costs are $385 a week for three days and then a stupid $850 a week if we have full time care (youngest two are in daycare).

Please throw your advice at me.

4 bedrooms for under a million? Sure can. Go onto realestate.com and have a look at the Carindale area. Good suburb, good state schools in the area. Be careful about school catchments though as the generally preferred state primary schools are hard to get into if you are in the wrong catchment.

Still get crime in the suburb, people breaking in for keys and stealing cars, smashing car windows for stuff, etc.

Check out the job opportunities first though. It all depends on your industry. I work in IT and there are jobs but not the range and variety (or pay) that they are in Sydney.

I'm an ex Sydneysider who moved for similar reasons over 10 years ago. You need air con. Today is the first day of autumn and we've had the air con on so it is cool enough to work. Summer goes on forever, it stays ridiculously muggy and hot overnight and forget about a decent winter.

DH was looking forward to the hot summers when we moved here, and even he is over it.

It's a nice lifestyle here, great museum and art gallery and other places to take the kids. City council does a good job maintaining the parks. Even if many restaurants seem to close at 9pm. But seriously the summers can be awful. If you don't like heat and humidity, forget it.

Have you considered Canberra?

I would never move back there because certain family members are there and we are settled in Sydney now, but I can see it is a really great place to raise a family. They do have a cold winter but you get four proper seasons which is nice. Good schools, universities and job opportunities. Nice cycle paths, parks and things to do with kids.

We moved away from Brisbane because neither DH nor I like the heat with humidity. We could survive, but it just wasn't pleasant for either of us. When the opportunity came up, we decided to move away again. Figured fate was saying "Don't live here, you don't have to."

(And yes, I am fully aware that Brisbane is not hot or humid compared to places further north. I have lived western Qld for several years, no problem. I don't have a problem with heat itself, but when coupled with humidity, i am a limp sweaty puddle and am useless for anything. Just about kills me when I have to travel to Cairns and Darwin for work in summer. I try to re-schedule those trips for May-September.)

It's hot for most of the year.

If you don't like that it is a challenge.

4 bedrooms for under a million? Sure can. Go onto realestate.com and have a look at the Carindale area. Good suburb, good state schools in the area. Be careful about school catchments though as the generally preferred state primary schools are hard to get into if you are in the wrong catchment.

Still get crime in the suburb, people breaking in for keys and stealing cars, smashing car windows for stuff, etc.

Check out the job opportunities first though. It all depends on your industry. I work in IT and there are jobs but not the range and variety (or pay) that they are in Sydney.

I'm an ex Sydneysider who moved for similar reasons over 10 years ago. You need air con. Today is the first day of autumn and we've had the air con on so it is cool enough to work. Summer goes on forever, it stays ridiculously muggy and hot overnight and forget about a decent winter.

DH was looking forward to the hot summers when we moved here, and even he is over it.

It's a nice lifestyle here, great museum and art gallery and other places to take the kids. City council does a good job maintaining the parks. Even if many restaurants seem to close at 9pm. But seriously the summers can be awful. If you don't like heat and humidity, forget it.

 

I agree with all of this. I grew up in Sydney and would never live there again. Brisbane isn't perfect but to me it's a much more pleasant lifestyle than Sydney.

There will be plenty of choice of 4 bedroom houses under $1mil within 20kms. It depends on your lifestyle and where you work (if you can avoid a long commute that would be preferable). North, south or east is typically easier transport-wise than west. Personally I prefer being closer to the bay or river as it's noticeably cooler than further away from the water. Carindale is a good suggestion.

Honestly, I'm starting to feel the same about Brisbane..in as much as it seems packed to the rafters. Driving is getting close to impossible anywhere around peak hour or Saturday morning sport rush and the heat used to be bearable, but with GW it's tipped it over the edge for me.

Well and truly possible to get a 4 bedroom place for under a mil within a 20km radius of the CBD.

As for climate, I find it cooler than Sydney in summer because we get the SE sea breezes, so keep bayside & you will find the heat not so bad to deal with.

I grew up in Adelaide, but live in Brisbane. I don’t mind it, the heat is gross though & it’s getting busier. You can definitely get a house under 1 mill close to the city. It’s great to have so much at your fingertips tourism wise.

Honestly, if we get job opportunities I’d move back to Adelaide, near the beach or Eastern Suburbs where there are great public schools & leafy streets.

As others have said, it's easy to get a house for under a million within 20km from the city.

Having said that, I wouldn't want to actually live 20km from the city. I think I'm about 12ish as the crow flies and 15km by road and wouldn't want to live any further out than that.

If you do decide to live here, I've found that if you live in a decent suburb then the state primary school should be okay. The same cannot be said for state highschools though. It may be a good idea to have give some thought to whether or not you want to send your kids to a state highschool. The state highschools are mostly zoned and you need to live in area to be guaranteed a spot else apply for an out of area application. My sister has successfully sent one of her children to an out of area state highschool this year, and I don't think it is necessarily that hard because mine all got into the same out of area school too.

My thoughts.

One of the most important decisions you will make is North vs Southside. It is a topic that anyone born and bred in Brisbane has very firm ideas about. From what I can make out, the southside is more expensive, probably due to the freeway and proximity to the Gold Coast. However, I feel that if you are working in the CBD then the northside is a more sensible choice because one accident on the freeway can add an hour to your commute into the city. In addition, I have a preference for getting to work via train and any suburb I would want to live in on the southside has a better bus service compared to the trains. When we moved back to Brisbane 15 or so years ago we pulled out a map and targeted suburbs on the train line because we knew that we didn't want to drive or bus it into work (CBD).

Houses are cheaper than Sydney but salaries are also lower. Something to be aware of.

Traffic is getting worse every year. I feel there has been too much growth / too many people moving here and I'm getting sick of all the people and the traffic. Saturday mornings in particular are hell on earth. I had to drive my daughter somewhere on the weekend. What should have been a 15 minute trip ended up taking 40 minutes and we were late to her appointment. Even my sleepy local shops are packed on most weekends. A few years ago it was easy to get a park on a Sunday. I had to park up the back of the carpark yesterday. Would have been unheard of a few years ago.

Carindale has been mentioned. It has lots going for it eg has a Wesfield. Houses are mostly 80s/90s. Very middle class. Not too far from the city. We looked at living there at one stage, but it isn't for me. Mostly because at the time we were looking at building and all the new estates had high voltage power lines running through them and I didn't fancy having a view of one from my backyard.

As others have mentioned, Bayside suburbs are a lot cooler. When we moved back to Brisbane, we did consider living down around Cleveland but in the end decided it was too far out. If you are interested in living near the water, I would be wary of Redcliffe / Deception Bay for reasons I don't want to go into on here. Also, incase you aren't aware, Brisbane doesn't have nice surf beaches the way that other capital cities do. The islands off the coast mean the water is flat and there are a lot of mangroves. If you want surf beaches you would need to travel to the Gold or Sunshine coasts.

Schools - Brisbane State High School is a sort of a selective state high school at South Brisbane. They have spots for in area kids + spots available for kids on sporting, academic or musical ability. It would be the 'best' state highschool in Brisbane and realestate prices and competition to get in reflect that. It's also a massive school (eg 2500 kids) which turned me off getting any of mine to sit the test to get in. Moving out, at one stage Mansfield state high school (southside) had a good reputation and was touted as the best state high school on the southside. I don't know what it is like now though and I know someone who looked into sending on of her children there and she didn't like it. The Gap State highschool (northside) is good and has had a lot of money spent on it in recent years (benefit of being Campbell Newman's ex Qld premier's electorate). Queensland Academies (2 campuses in Brisbane) are a selective sort of state school for year 10-12. It is public but there are fees involved. When I looked into it years ago the fees were around the $2k mark per year, but they would have gone up since then. As a general rule, the better state highschools are closer to the city. The further out you get, the more issues there may be. Please note, I have said may not will. There are some schools that I would never send my kids to based incidents that friends have told me about and others are probably fine.

Temperature - meh. I'm WFH and it's sticky today plus we don't have aircon. Having said that, this summer has been the coolest summer we have had for years. I tend not to feel the heat too much so it doesn't bother me as much as other people are bothered by it. What is concerning though is that we have lost our winters. We only get one or two cold days a year, a week at most. When I was a kid I definitely had to wear my jumper to school in winter. Mine don't bother.

Good luck in your decision. I would strongly suggest coming up here a few times, at different times of the year before making a decision.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Feebi

Everywhere seems to be getting busy with traffic, especially with people avoiding public transport due to covid. We live in Perth and I also think it is getting busy. So with that in mind, and as Brisbane is bigger than Perth, I suggest you consider Adelaide!!

[mention]DaLittleEd[/mention] i was just going to suggest moving to perth. Although it’s almost impossible to get a house at the moment, almost zero rental availability and houses are getting bought days after going on the market.

[mention]Fruitmincepies[/mention] I was also going to mention Perth, but then thought Adelaide was a better long term proposition! Not that we are in a position to move due to family and work availability. And, yes, urgh, trying to get any kind of house atm.

I've lived in Sydney,Brisbane,,Melbourne and now Newcastle. Newcastle is my favourite(and you can get a house under a million here within 10kms of city,plus a big hospital and uni employers and other industries) but Brisbane would be 2nd on my list. It was back in the early 2000s though and I loved living in the inner north (very leafy and got breezes as it was on a hill). February was pretty unbearable heatwise but other months not too bad. I really liked Brisbane as it was/is?such a friendly town and welcoming to outsiders I made friends really easily. Newcastle is also a friendly city.

Brisbane is a good place to live.

Agree that you can definitely get a nice 4 bed home (possibly with a pool) and aircon for under $1 million in a good suburb.

I've in the past few years lived in suburbs of Carindale, Mount Gravatt East, Mansfield and Wishart - never been victim of crime, but there is opportunistic crime and some break ins in places. It is a safe place generally though.

South vs North of river is huge, as previously said. I"m a south sider through and through.

Bayside does add a touch of coolness, but then distance from city is worse. Though Wynnum and Manly is becoming a fabulous place to live. Prices rising, but houses older. Gumdale or Wakerly are suburbs close to the bay, but modern. Primary schools around here are fabulous and there are plenty of high schools in the top ten state high schools (plus a good selection of private schools).

Come on up!

Easy peasy to get a 4bedder under $1mil in your km radius.

Great schools available within the area too.

Trains to outer Cleveland line stops can be problematic, irregular and the roads are a bit meh too.

Holland Park Is lovely, bus to the city or the M1, which can be a nightmare though. Bus runs on its own busway.

Yeronga/Yeerongpilly lovely but has flood areas, train to city.

Indooroopilly area is nice, hilly, and good schools, train to city or bus.

Ashgrove, Bardon, The Gap all nice, good schools, bus to the city.

Mitchelton and Ferny Grove area are burgeoning, good prices, good schools.

It is hot here,and humid. It's starting to bother us as we get older, and my husband has a medical condition which is affected by heat. We're moving south because of it.

Thank you all so much for the detailed information, so much to think about and so many suburbs to investigate.

The humidity is definitely an issue. We would want a pool and ducted air con.

Work could be an issue in Adelaide and Canberra, but they are lovely places to live.

I like the idea of Brisbane, because of the frequent flights to NZ.

Sorry to be vague about the police thing.

We live Nth Brisbane, moved here 8yrs ago from South Coast NSW (house prices there now crazy!!) and absolutely love it. We’re currently living in aircon because of the humidity, however I do remember the first year we were up here went to watch DS at football in July and everyone was wearing jeans and long jumpers, we thought they were crazy as we were quite comfy in our shorts and T.shirts, we may have acclimatised a little since then!

We chose North as my husband works at the airport, we were not fussed with paying tolls to get to and from work every day, it takes him between 20-25 mins to get there. I Worked in the city for a bit, took 1hr on train each way, but I found it very hard every time there was a storm as there are always so many problems with the train lines, but driving was no better, sometimes took up to 2hrs, then had to drive around for a park, just high stress, so I did find something closer to home.

Real estate is absolutely crazy right now, I think the whole of the Brisbane area is feeling it, both rental and sales. A house around the corner had a For Sale sign up for a day, next day had a sold sticker on it, usually 1-2 weeks max from advertising to sold, even before this. Rentals are very hard to come by, I think because the house sales are like they are, landlords are offloading investment properties, and just the fact there are not enough rentals to start and now the influx of interstate people moving up here, its just making it harder.

My DS23 has just moved back home for a few months to save a deposit.

Would we move away now, absolutely not, and all our southern family who come visit always say they want to move up here, they haven’t yet though, lol!

Queensland Academies (2 campuses in Brisbane) are a selective sort of state school for year 10-12. It is public but there are fees involved.

 

Everything Feebi said. The Academy at Toowong is about to expand to yrs 7-12. The school has had extra buildings added to it to increase capacity.

Inner West on the northside for me. If you have any questions about that area I'm happy to help.

We are Bayside and we like it. Our kids are in public schools and we haven't had any problems. We don't need the city though and very rarely go but traffic into the city would make it hard if you needed to travel each day.

Brisbane State High School is now over 3000 students. It's Australia's largest school. Its catchment is one of the areas in Brisbane where you would struggle to get a 4-bedder for under $1M anyway.

Brisbane South State Secondary College has opened.

https://qed.qld.gov.au/programs-initiatives/department/building-education/new-schools-for-2021/inner-city-south-state-secondary-college

I've got a few friends roughly woolloongabba area. The general *love* for Brisbane seems to be decreasing with each passing year. Over development and traffic are their biggest complaints. One said she'd never return to Sydney when she left and she's considering returning to Melbourne now for the same reasons she left Sydney.

As a general rule everyone I know who has gone to Brisbane has been very happy initially. Whether that's continued long term varies. But none regret going there.

I agree with all the others heaps of houses available in that price range, I dont find it that hot and do find the winters cool

Kelvin Grove State College has a good reputation too and Fortitude Valley Secondary College is new this year, with all the most up to date of everything

Mooguru: The Gabba area is being developed quickly and it's definitely losing its character. It's just busy traffic and building sites now it seems. Old houses that were characteristic of the area are being demolished and unit blocks going up in their place. They build boundary to boundary as much as possible so there's less gardens and yards there.

Kelvin Grove State College is another massive school. P-12, 1000s of students. Traffic would be hell to get there twice a day for drop offs and pick ups. Same for the Valley's new school.

purplekitty: Lovely location, not! Part way between the cemetery and the old Boggo Road Jail. Heck no. There would be ghosts hanging around there for sure.