Hi,
My wife works for a big international bank and her boss offered her a job over in Perth, at a place called Booragoon, apparently in a shopping centre there.
We might go over there for a couple of weeks at the bank's expense to check it out. We would look for somewhere to rent initially and then probably buy a place there, preferrably a townhouse or a house if the budget stretches that far.
Whats the job market like there now? I currently work in IT but its a low-mid level job at a school. I'm thinking of getting back into teaching as I enjoyed it more than fixing computers and stuff like that. I'm not interested in teaching kids that don't give a crap about learning anything. I've been there and done that, I'd rather banging my head against the wall for 6 hours.
Are there any suburbs that should be avoided? I think Armadale is a bit dodgy isn't it? We would prefer to live somewhere close to work so at this stage somewhere close to Booragoon.
I've been to Perth before, but it was only for some parties and passing through on the way to Lancelin, so I don't know it well. I remember the CBD being pretty small compared to Sydney's or Melbourne's.
Come on all you WAers. Sell your state.
Booragoon would be great: 15min to beach, 2min to river sailing spot. Very good area... but too good for normal people....about $700K for an average house.
Some areas close to that (15min) such as Atwell, Success, Beeliar are average to good, maybe $450K average / $400p/w for a 4x2 with all the fruit.
Townhouses may be a bit harder in a 15min radius of Booragoon, but Melville, Palmyra, Bicton are all in that area and have top 3x1 strata type jobbies .... pretty pricey.
Definitely avoid Armadale or Seville Grove ... besides that is 20min to Booragoon... better to look 20 min south not 20 min east.
Oh yeah and... 2min away is Brentwood: full of 3x1 strat type jobbies also and maybe some reasonably priced renters
I live in Brentwood.Close to smellville for speed blasting and close to the freeway so it's straight to Lano with ease on the weekends.Very good location as far as living in perth goes and it's close to Freo.
Plenty work around moby you won't have any trouble there...
Make the move you won't look back.
6 months ago I came over with the plan on living here for a year at the most...
Now I'm looking at buying a house here!
Come over and join the party
Yeah there seems to be a fair bit of work there. I saw an IT support job which is similar to what I do now, located in Applecross. They need someone who knows Lotus Notes, poor buggers 
(not really, its a fantastic application), which I do.
My wife's boss is offering a two week visit there, to get an idea of the local market, the office and people working there. I'll try and swing a two weeks off work and go over there with her. I'd have to pay for my airfares though. So the best thing to do is go and have a look and consider the matter.
I spent 4 weeks there in March while working remotely and compared to Sydney I found it easy to get around. There certainly isn't the traffic problems that we have here.
I stick to around Rockingham because I like the flat water sailing at Safety Bay, although I think the area has a pretty negative image to a lot of people in Perth. Some people were shocked that I would drive a whole hour on the freeway to get from SB up to places north of Perth.
The freeway was great, and no hassles. I don't know what it is like in peak hour though.
I'm not sure that you would need to live that close to your work unless you really wanted to ditch the car. I didn't find any delays getting anywhere except for when they were working on the freeway itself.
The downsides of my visits there is I really don't know much about Perth apart from the great windsurfing in summer...
In this day and age of high fuel prices we don't want to commute long distances by car. Right now in Sydney I have a 10 minute walk to work and my wife catches the train to work. She has a 5 minute walk to our station and then a short walk to her work. It takes her less than 25 minutes to get to work.
So if we can do something similar it would be preferable. Plus the fact it seems like a big waste of time driving and being stuck at traffic lights every day.
I know there are different ways of looking at this and some people prefer to live in a more pleasant place and then commute to work but we would rather do it the other way round if we can.
Information given here helps a lot. Hopefully we can go over there soon for a couple of weeks and check the place out. I'll probably hire a car and scout around during the day, looking for somewhere to initially rent and looking for work.
When you get on the roads don't forget to stick your head up your butt and glue your middle finger to the windscreen, seems to work for most of them over there.
flame suit on[}:)]
I wonder if it's the influx of people from all over which is contributing to such bad driving in Perth? With the boom on there are so many moving here that had licenses issued in other states or countries it's little wonder there is no consistency.
One thing that's really starting to bug me is people drifting into my lane. Not merging, just putting their wheels on my side of the line and driving across both lanes. I seriously considered ramming one the other day; my bull bar wouldn't have been damaged if I had. I got up next to her and saw that she was fiddling with some sort of doll (presumably for a child in the car) with both hands off the wheel and not concentrating on the road too well.
Thats no good. Generally drivers in Sydney are pretty good, especially considering the dodgy and busy roads we have. When I was in WA 10 years ago I thought the drivers there were pretty good. They gave you a wave on country roads which was nice. I didn't drive much in Perth but I didn't have any dramas, despite having little idea of where I was going.
I get sick of this endless, "the drivers are bad" crap.
they are not THAT bad .... OK, they have problems with the concept of merge .... but other than that its all OK.
Booragoon and surrounding suburbs are nice, your reasonably close to Melville, if you dont mind sailing in the river, not really that far from Safety Bay, if you like flat water on the ocean etc. etc.
One thing you will be sadly disappointed in is the public transport.
Based around Booragoon, your only public transport option is buses, with the nearest train running along the freeway, between Mandurah and Perth.
The taxi's SUCK big time, if you can even get one
You WILL need your own car for anything outside of peak hours.
From Booragoon its a 1/2 hour (doing it easy) to the city on a pushie. Same to Freo but only cause there's a few hills.
I drove a courier run for a year in Perth and didn't find the drivers here any worse than any other city in the country.
It's just the bad ones you remember.Not the 200 or so good ones you pass everyday.
I am sure the drivers in Victoria are just as bad as WA. I noticed it when I moved down from QLD 8 years ago.
Down here a roundabout may as well be a stop sign. NO ONE knows how to merge! Then they complain endlessly about how roundabouts dont work. Why cant everyone drive as perfectly as me??
The windsurfing conditions outway any problems Perth may have.Within an hour and a half drive you can be sailing a world class wave.Who gives a rats nut what Perth is like[}:)]
At least the roads in WA and NT crap all over what we have here in QLD, When we crossed back into QLD after spending a year in WA we didn't need a sign to tell us, the roads got one foot narrower with no shoulders and lots of pot holes.
Its a disgrace to the QLD Gov. that it was so noticable.
Moby, I notice from your previous posts you like public transport, sadly as mentioned in Perth I belive its crap. The trick, I think, is to live near work, avoid peak hour use your bike and pack the car up ready to get to your preferd sailing spot, avoiding peak hour. Booragoon is as good a suburb as you can get, unless your rich! If you can get a local job, AppleX is perfect and you can knock off early you will get all the sailing you want on the river or along the coast. Perth is a city for cars, more people are using the main arterial public transport routes now bcause of fuel prices, but unless you work in the city, I reckon you want quick access to your car so you can shoot of at 3.30 for a sail at cottesloe, or with daylight sailing, you zoom up the freeway to Lancelin at that time of the day and still have a long session.
I reckon youd get a job in Freo carving Yiros if you applied.
I also noticed over there that they sell 'shark and chips'. Over here they probably just sell shark to you anyway.
No matter where I went, I couldn't find any 'whitepointer and chips'. Why is that?
)
warning...most windsurfing people who move to WA or even just pop over for a look,ARE NEVER SEEN AGAIN !!!! (on the east coast)
dont like talking it up, so all im saying is pack the car......
Surfing on sunday am sublime conditions, slightly offshore, glassy, bit of swell, sunny, coastal stip glowing in the morning sun, cool line up, then someone mentioned bacon and eggs. ahhahahahhhhhhh.
How about Moby gets a dingy going with a BBQ on the back, the whole thing, coffee, bacon and egg burgers, Im happy to stick a $10 in my wetty and hand over to the man. Maybe get a tow out to the reef.......
As they say plenty of opportunitys in Perth....
I live down the road in Melville.
IMO its a great part of Perf to live in. Close to beach, river and shopping.
PM me if you need a tour around the place.
Would be happy to help out
