Looking to make the move to Perth & fancy Rockingham or Mandurah- They look lovely places, are they?

Q: Also, I have 3 small children 2 of primary school age, what are the schools like and can you recommend a good one? Would this area or surrounding be ideal for a family with 3 young children (7, 5 & 3 years)? How far away from Perth centre is it and how costly is it for accomodation, renting & buying? Any general information or answers to this would be gratefully received. Kind Regards x

A: Hi Vicki, I lived in Port Kennedy for 3 years, and now rent my house out while I live closer to the city for CBD work (don't have kids). It's a lovely area to raise a family, and I would still live there if I was home raising kids. Wherever you are, you're only 5 minutes to beautiful pristine beaches and Shoalwater is a lovely family beach. Ok, so heading south along the coast you have Town of Kwinana, comprising the suburbs of Medina, Orelia, Parmelia, Callista, Leda and Wellard. Wellard has a major new land estate built around the new Perth-Mandurah railway line. Leda has newer houses but I wouldn't live there as it has a bad reputation for social problems with bored teens. The other areas are part of rejunivated state housing and while some houses are lovely and absolute bargains cost-wise, you have to be sure you get a good street with good neighbours. Personally, unless you've got a very tight budget, I wouldn't bother. Rockingham is much more pleasant. You have the older areas, and then lots of new land estates with typical "great aussie dream" houses. Shoalwater, Rockingham, Warnbro, Port Kennedy are the best suburbs down there. There are lots of UK emmigrants in the area, which is good and bad depending where you're from. If you're from the UK, there's small british food shops in the main shopping centers which you might like. It's not a highly multi-cultural area, but still diverse depending where you are. Port Kennedy, I know itimately. You can buy a 4 bed 2 bath house on 500 - 800sqm bocks, less than 1km from the ocean, and most often with very high quality finishings and landscaping, even a pool, around $450,000. My house is as above but without landscaping/pool and was valued at $380,000 last year. Inner Perth city suburbs eg. Willetton, Dianella the same thing would be around $500,000 - $600,000. With Port Kennedy though, make sure you buy or rent a house with landscaping because it's really tough getting started, as you're trying to grow into sand dunes. It's also very windy in winter. For a rental, $300pw will get you a great house, $400pw will get you a beautiful family home. Rental prices are projected to skyrocket this year too, so Port Kennedy and Warnbro will end up being one of the cheaper areas. Next down the coast is Secret Harbour, a private estate about 1minute from Port Kennedy but valued a little bit higher. Again, it is housing built on sand dunes but there's a nice part of it with some tuart-tree parklands, giving some change to an otherwise roof-lined skyline. Secret Harbour's beachfront reminds me of "home and away" (TV), except you have to climb over the dunes and not just walk down to the beach. It's has very good surfing and people travel from all over to go to that beach. Then there's a few more isolated suburbs (isolated being 10-20 mins either way to rocky/mand) such as Singleton. Nice beachside suburbs that were holiday homes but are seeing a resurgence of families due to development. When you hit mandurah, the first suburb is Lakelands (inland, close to train) or Madora Bay ? (on the beach). Then there is Meadow Springs. all three are fairly new estates. Central Mandurah is mainly older houses: holiday homes from the 50s/60s, a few period homes, but mostly ones built up in the 70s and 80s. Each have a particular style. There's good and bad areas of Mandurah, I'd pretty much stick to Halls Head, the areas surrounding the estuary before the main bridge (Pinjarra Road) and then Fremantle-Mandurah Road (the main road coming down from Ennis Ave, Rockingham). Mandurah house prices, estimate is $450,000 - $600,000 for a quality family home. Possibly cheaper in some areas but really get a feel for the immediate few streets first. So, I thoroughly recommend the area if you are raising a family. It's lovely along this coastline with lost of family oriented activities. I don't recommend it if you're a CBD working couple driving to work every day because it gets tedious! During the building of the train line it was taking us over 2hrs each way, with the train line I estimate it would take 1.5hrs each way because you still need to get from the train to your suburb and home. Warnbro/Port Kennedy is excellent value for money considering the high cost of living in Perth, there are great schools. In Port Kennedy, we lived walking distance from 3 primary schools and 2 high schools. Port Kennedy Primary is a good school and St Bernadettes is a good catholic school. The Real Estate Institute of WA (reiwa.com.au) has buy and rent house listings but also lots of data on the current average costs of suburbs. Note these are often a few months out, which was a problem about 6 months ago but now the boom is slowing down they're probably more accurate. Also, there's lots of houses for sale in Port Kennedy/Warnbro so take your time to look around as there is no rush. Don't let it concern you either, as I expect it to be many people like myself who built down there when it was one of the few land releases in Perth during the boom a few years back but who now either want to make a profit by selling or are moving back up to Perth like me. Oh, and it's exactly 56kms from "Port Kennedy Drive" to Perth CBD! However, if you have 3 young kids you will love the area and its very very relaxed beachside atmosphere. Cheers, Kate

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