how 's life in Canberra?

Hello Soelily.

Welcome to Expat.com!

Hope you will soon get some useful informations from other members.

Aurélie

Thanks aurelie !

Hi Soelily,

I live in Canberra. If you and your family have looked into the cost of housing and you have found that you can easily afford rent or a mortgage in Canberra then you should not have trouble affording anything else, as the most expensive thing in Canberra is the cost of housing. However, if you think rent will take up too much of your income, you should reconsider migrating.

I hope this helps!

Regards,

Joe

Thanks Joe, we ' re thinking of renting at first and st start looking to buy afterwards. We did some research and most rentals are about $1200 a month.

Hi again,

That must mean prices are starting to come down. That seems cheap for Canberra-- that's really good news.

Joe

Hi Joe,
Really? The realestate agent told us that's for a 2bdroom unfurnished
apartment without utilities. For a serviced furnished apartment 2br, we would pay 2300 utilities included.

Hi again, I would be very wary of that, but it is definitely possible.  In no case should you commit to any place to live without seeing it in person, as well the area it is in. I have seen places that are absolutely awful-- very bad smells and stains, 40 year old carpet and wallpaper, etc.  Most real estate agents I've met here aren't completely honest about what they are selling. You will also have to decide if you are going to have a car (most people have one), as depending on where you end up living, a 20 minute car trip can take 90 minutes by bus.  If you don't drive, you may not want to end up having to walk everywhere in a neighborhood that you aren't completely comfortable with.

The best place I have found online to find out about housing prices in Canberra is this website-- www.allhomes.com.au

There are also listings on the Gumtree website as well.

Also, the Canberra government has a 'new' program where you can rent the land a new home is built on-- you buy the home, but rent the land with the option to buy the land at a later date (at a hopefully lower price). This effectively cuts the price of a new home from about $600,000 to about $300,000.

I hope this helps.

Hi Joe,
thanks a lot !!! Allhomes is one of the agencies we got in touch with.
Your tips are very helpful!!

Regards Soelily

Hi again, I've looked at so many places over the past 18 months, and there were so many that I just walked out of because they were so bad for the money that they wanted for them.  But to be fair, there is some OK stuff out there, but it is definitely outnumbered by the bad, or by places that are misrepresented.  And just to be clear, Allhomes.com is not an agency, but a classified website where ANY agency or private person can list something they have for sale or rent.  Almost every property on Canberra is on that site, so in my opinion, I would say it is the most useful site to start with for finding a place in Canberra.

Good luck in your search!

Joe

Hi, thought I"d jump in to this discussion! I came here from NZ 3 months ago. Finding a home is the singularly most difficult thing you will do. Decent ones are hard to find and there is lots of competition for them from other people (I heard stories of people offering 3 months rent up front just to secure a place!). Accommodation is very expensive. I rented a 3 bed unfurnished in the inner south and pay $750 a week for the privilege. Make sure you find somewhere with good insulation as it is very cold here and I came from the SI NZ where I thought I was used to it! Central heating is a must. On the plus side I have found phone and utilities cheaper than NZ. Food is about the same.
I also used allhomes.com.au as does everyone. I agree that you should not take anything sight unseen and don't believe the photos.. Hope that helps.

Hey Soelily,

How are you going with the info.  I live on the 'North side' of Canberra. (Which is North of Lake Burley Griffin really).  Around the 'Inner North' I see a lot of new apartments going up around Ainslie and Braddon.  But, since they are fairly close to what they call here the centre of Canberra (i.e. Civic), they may be more pricey.  Most suburbs around the centre are at a premium and thus considered more costly to rent/buy.  The outer area such as Ngunnalwal (around the Gunghalin area) are also areas where builders as flat out erecting new buildings. Whenever new areas open up for development, as soon as you buy a plot of land, you have to start building on in within 1 year.  Hence, if you visit Gunghalin after 1 yera, you dont recognise some areas anymore.
You could also go further south, pst "Nappy Valley" near Tuggeranong.  I dont advice that area.  Not becuase it is not nice, but because it takes a fair chunk out of your day if you have to travel to the centre of Canberra.  If you look at a map of Canberra on Google, you can go to street view and get yourself an idea of what the place looks like.
In temrs of food, it depends on what you purchase.  Yes, you can find some Belgian food, but that is probably limited to Beer, bisuits, chocolate, and if you are lucky, Devod Lemmens mayonaise. Get used to the local food fast. You find more variety that Belgium, possibly due to the large influence of the different nationalities that migrated to OZ.  They also have Aldi here, cheaper, but not a large range, and you can always top the other necesities up with Woolworths or Coles supermarkets.  Smaller centres have also small food shopping centres such as IGA and Supabarn. You can find organic food (but at a premium), there are also teh farmers market, where local farmers sell their goods. Expect at least about $200 per week on groceries. Fuel, well, Diesel is more expensive than Petrol (RON 91 with E10 ethanol will set you back $1.42-46 per litre, RON 95 can jump up to $1.60/liter, and RON 98, if you want to run you Subaru Impreza WRX will cost you more) LPG is around 70cents/liter.  LNG is not really taking off here, we sell it in cubic kilometers to China for their taxi's.
Power? If you get your own place, get solar cells and solar hot water. It pays itself off if you are able to outlay it.
I suggest you first rent, then look around the place, find an area you like, and then continue from there.
What to do on the weekend? If it is sport, Canberra is spoiled for choice. You find about everything here. (although for skiing I suggest you fly to Queenstown in NZ)
In my humble opinion, cars are expensive here compared to Belgium. Get yourself a bomb for $3000 to run for the first year or two before deciding on another second hand car. Dont look at the new car stats, most new cars (about 80%) are purchased by leasing companies.
My kid is grown up and moved to Sydney. However, plenty to do for the kids.

Public vs Private school.  Going Private, show us the money!! Again, it depends where you are going to live and what quality you expect.  The Telopea school has French/English, used by most embassy people (you can also do your Baca Laureat there). And for the rest, how much to you want to invest in the education of your child? You'l find a Steiner school ($1.1K to $1.6k/year), a Montesory primary, Radford in Bruce is probably more high-end (expect $8k to $13K per year for the fees). Public schools? New areas have new schools, like on the North side (Gunghalin), old suburbs have old schools (see Ainslie).

Wow guys, thanks a lot!!
That was the info from locals we were thinking about !!
Concerning schools we inquired for a few prospectus,we prefer enrolling our daughter at a Montessori school, because she's on a Montessori school here and knows the system.
Purchasing a car, we were thinking just a you suggested, secondhand first and something else in a year or something along the road.
Pj0104: can you define travelling a chunk of the day ? At the moment I travel 45min to work and my husband a little over an hour, so everything less is fine with us !!!

Thanks a lot guys, I really appreciate it !!