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

Question

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

Answer 1

Mandurah is a nicer place but a city in its own right and a little bit further from perth than rockingham. It takes about 45 minutes-1hour to drive from mandurah to perth, and there is also a train that runs right through from mandurah to perth. lots of schools and shops, things to do. it would be more like you are living in mandurah and you visit perth on long weekends etc...

renting isn't as high as perth, but if you want to live near the ocean or canals it will be higher.

goodluck!

Answer 2

Some of the suburbs in the Rockingham area have quite a bad reputation such as Orelia, Parmelia, Medina these have tradionally been cheap areas I suppose because they are close to Kwinana which is a heavy industry area.

I haven't been to Mandurah lately, I think you will find that although it is nicer it will be more pricey and quite a hike to Perth even with all the new transport.

Government schools are all pretty much the same and it seems to be the latest trend to send your kids to a private school, especially in high school. I'm not sure they're really worth the extra money, I've been satified with the government provided education for my kids.

Here is the dept of education web site - you can see where all the govenment schools are located.

http://www2.eddept.wa.edu.au/schoolprofi...

Real esate

www.reiwa.com

www.realestate.com.au

Answer 3

If you consider Rockingham then I would strongly advise considering private schools, both at primary and secondary levels. The cost is not as prohibitive as you might think (assuming you are from the UK), as government funding is given to both private and government schools.

House prices have had a bit of a shake up in places like Warnbro, so with recent interest rate increases there are possibly a few bargains around. If you can, rent for a while in the locality and get a feel for the areas. Whatever you do, do not accept guidance from areal estate agent. You could be lucky and find a good and honest one, but 'lucky' is the optimum word.

Mandurah is far enough from Perth not to be considered as a suburb, but the coastal sprawl is getting there. Prices are inflated, but unlikely to move downwards much in the near future.

Answer 4

Haven't been there but Brisbane is fantastic.  Mango Hill and Griffin are 2 of the highest growth areas in Australia and a lot of people from overseas are moving there. All brand new, new shops, new schools, new library.  Lovely fresh and new.  Everything thing, bus  and not far from Petrie train station which is about 40 minutes to Brisbane city.  go to Google Earth and look up North Lakes Shopping Centre and take a look at all the development in the surrounding area.  Great for kids.  Take a look at the lake.  Anyway, if you change your mind about Perth. come on over.

Answer 5

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