Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific - any useful online links for relocating to Sydney tips?

Hi all --

I will be moving to Sydney from the UK in about 2 months, and knew I should ask all you experts first -- do you have any useful online links that a newcomer to the city should read? Especially about neighborhoods, favorite places, facts about daily life (commuting, etc), rents, hassles, taxes, or anything else useful?

Thanks!

A useful place to start is by reading a Sydney newspaper (http://www.smh.com.au/) each day or as often as you can to get some feel for the place.

Hi all --

I will be moving to Sydney from the UK in about 2 months, and knew I should ask all you experts first -- do you have any useful online links that a newcomer to the city should read? Especially about neighborhoods, favorite places, facts about daily life (commuting, etc), rents, hassles, taxes, or anything else useful?

Thanks!

Sydney housing is in the top 10 most expensive in the world, if not top 5, according to stories picked up by local media, so here is a realestate link (you will learn we are extremely literal with our names ;)) realestate.com.au (http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?id=2065&a=qfp&cu=fn-rea&t=ren&q=Go). You can look up a suburb's rent properties by postcode.

For views, convenience and to be in a less high-density area, I'd recommend suburbs on the rail line north of Sydney (less than 15mins travl time to city), such as Waverton/Wollstonecraft/St Leonards (postcode: 2065). Good community facilities and convenience for work and play.

[Edit to add: sort the list from the link above by price and see what is available $300-400/wk. Properties such as 2RB units may range from 40yrs old to new and are usually priced according to space, condition and convenience/location.]

On the same side but by bus, Neutral bay/Mosman but the latter two have more traffic and may be excessively gentrified/petrified if you are looking for a social outlet nearby (IMO!).

Let the debate begin!

thanks for your quick replies! I think I should give a little more detail to help out --

I've been to Sydney several times, and I'm taking a new job in Epping near Macquarie University. And I don't know if this is unrealistic, but right now the main thing I'm fixated on is renting an apartment in some place like Kirribilli or similar that has nice water views -- isn't that the whole point of Sydney? :) It's sort of an academic job, so that you know where I'm coming from, and I figured my budget would be something like $300 per week or less, but after looking through domain.com.au, I see that this is a bit of a stretch for such an exclusive neighborhood (?).

So, mainly I was hoping to get advice on this sort of thing, and any random thoughts you might have about it if you know the areas!

thanks!

thanks for your quick replies! I think I should give a little more detail to help out --

I've been to Sydney several times, and I'm taking a new job in Epping near Macquarie University. And I don't know if this is unrealistic, but right now the main thing I'm fixated on is renting an apartment in some place like Kirribilli or similar that has nice water views -- isn't that the whole point of Sydney? :) It's sort of an academic job, so that you know where I'm coming from, and I figured my budget would be something like $300 per week or less, but after looking through domain.com.au, I see that this is a bit of a stretch for such an exclusive neighborhood (?).

So, mainly I was hoping to get advice on this sort of thing, and any random thoughts you might have about it if you know the areas!

thanks!

You won't get water views in Sydney for $300/week and definatley not in Kirribilli.

On that sort of budget I would look at those suburbs BiziBB suggested, I'm from the Eastern suburbs and there is a bit of rivalry between the North Shore but the east is much better for things to do at night, I would seriously consider looking at the inner city/east around Paddington/Surry Hills/Kings Cross/Darlinghurst etc

With a budget of 300 bucks a week, believe it or not, your choices will be limited slightly. I agree with Ben, you won't get waterviews..unless it's a view over the Parrmatta River...at Parramatta :)

I agree with the idea of looking for something on the north shore. Chatswoo is not bad and rather central and yes...Waverton and Wollstonecraft are nice areas.

For $300 a week you'll be looking at a 1br apartment in chatswood/lane cove, just don't expect a new one. A train line between chatswood and north ryde is going in atm which should be finished in about 9 mnths

As bensyd mentioned the other side of the bridge does have more options for things to do at night (though I'm more partial to inner west/newtown than inner east) however it will cost you 30-45 min each way in your commute and an hour plus if you have to take public transport

thanks for the continuing replies. I've been given some ideas on where to start "...think Hunters Hill, Gladesville, Linley Point, Greenwich, Lane Cove West or East Ryde, suitable for the Epping / Macquarie University area."

also, have any of you had success with Craigslist instead of the commercial real estate/rental search engines? I've been given this link to explore too:
http://www.gumtree.com.au/

Link (http://www.131500.com.au/maps/bus/) to some useful maps. Click on area 7. Commuting in Sydney can be a pita :eek:

thanks for the continuing replies. I've been given some ideas on where to start "...think Hunters Hill, Gladesville, Linley Point, Greenwich, Lane Cove West or East Ryde, suitable for the Epping / Macquarie University area."

also, have any of you had success with Craigslist instead of the commercial real estate/rental search engines? I've been given this link to explore too:
http://www.gumtree.com.au/

Only problem with the suburbs you mention is that there is really nothing to do at night. They are very much suburbs with a Chinese restaurant and maybe a pub but not much else. I guess it depends on what sort of hours you are doing, but I would suggest somewhere abit more social friendly.

Epping itself is well-located for restaurants and a few pubs but it's a poor comparison to harbourside suburbs that are only a short drive/taxi/train ride to the city.

I stick by my first suggestions, for a great view and lots of stock in that price range. I was paying only $250pw for many years until 2004 so $300-350 may still be possible.

Keep looking around Crows Nest / St Leonards / Lane Cove / Chatswood. ^

I just moved to Sydney from the US (Boston) in April. I'm here on a 457 visa (4 year extended stay) and I ended up in Leichhardt about 4km to the west of the city.

We tried doing some of the beach places like Manly (I hear the ferries are a nightmare and expensive) but even when we found a place where the landlord was accepting of the fact we have a small (3kilo) dog then the strata group (condo association) would turn us down. We had this happen at 2 or 3 places. If you're bringing pets and are going through the quarantine process I can fill you in on that, but expect the number of places that will rent to you to go down from 20 to 1, at best.

Also, you'll want to prepare yourself for the way that Sydney does their rentals. I don't know how it is done in the UK, but in the US it's typical to get a "renter's agent" and they will do some of the leg work to find you a place, and will arrange for showings for you. In Sydney most showings for places are done for 15-30 minutes on a Saturday. All the listings will stagger themselves throughout that day, so you can check out 5 places in your range. Obviously that's not every case, but almost all the properties will get listed early in the week and then on Saturday you'll roll out to a place at 9:30am to find that there are 30 couples also there to look at the place.
It turns into a mad scramble to get your application in on time, and when we were looking at Balmain (a very popular spot) we would see the agent drive up to the house, and before they had opened the door multiple people would be handing them applications for the space.

My wife and I naively booked a hotel downtown for a week expecting to line up a place within that time, but it ended up taking a few weeks (remembering you only really get one day a week to check a majority of places out). The fact we had a dog made it a lot more difficult.
That's not to say you'll run into problems, and there are plenty of nice suburbs that offer different pluses and minuses. But, I would try to see if your job placement will line you up with some extended stay accomodations while you look, or else see if they will put you in with a relocation agent who will actually line up places for you to see during the week.

To give you an idea to be near Manly beach but off the water a bit we were looking at $600+ per week for a nicer place. Our visa has the benefit of not taxing anything spent on rent, and not taxing $200/week in food, so we were willing to pay a bit more for housing. Regardless, as people said you will be hardpressed to find something for $300 per week, and places on the bottom end of the price scale can be pretty rough.

You'll want to investigate the buses or ferries, and I would recommend hitting up www.131500.info once you settle on an area you are interested in. You'll be able to see how you can get from one place to another. I'm out in Leichhardt, but I love it because there are a million buses (437, 438, 440, L38, L40) that take straight to the city and run often. I pay $23.40 for 10 bus trips using a "travel ten" pass you can buy at any news agent. Some buses only allow you on with a travel pass, and it's cheaper, so if you find yourself taking the bus a lot I would recommend them. The only thing you need to figure out is what color you need, which can be found out by looking up the specific route on google, and you'll get a PDF that shows which color you should buy. I'm a "brown travel ten" for example, but people closer in can use the "blue travel ten" and further out have to use a "red travel ten."

I still haven't driven since I'm used to the "wrong" side of the road from the States.

If you're a hardcore computer user that downloads a ton you'll want to know that almost all broadband plans here have quotas, with the larger packages being something like 20GB peak and 40GB offpeak (with iinet).
To get ADSL you'll need to get Telstra to install a phone for you, which will take some time, then you'll probably transition your phone over to the carrier (you can read about broadband at whirlpool.net.au if you're interested).

For mobile phones there are some carriers like Telstra, 3, Vodaphone. They're all the same to me (nice phones, high prices, good coverage) but I mention them in case you want to research the different phones/plans that they offer.
I'm sure people that have lived here longer have opinions on internet and phone.

For television you're most likely looking at Foxtel, and they have a tivo-like option with their IQ box.

Banking you've got ANZ, Commonwealth, Westpac, St. George.

Having been here before you'll know the power is 240V... I think the UK is the same so it's not an issue, but my wife has destroyed a hair dryer, and I stupidly blew up a wireless router I brought because I didn't check the voltage (the US is 120V) before plugging it in with my trusty power adapter.

You'll most likely have reciprocal health care from the UK, but if you don't then you can look into Aushealth (http://www.aushealth.com).

That's all I can think of off the top of my head... Let me know if you have any other questions.

I didn't realize I went on and on, but hopefully there is some useful info for you.

Good luck with the move... You'll love it here.

I moved to Sydney from Europe three years ago and collected some information that others might find useful on the following web page: http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~frauch/NewToSydney.html

Hope it helps.

- Xilef

there are some fab apartment and house accommodations here
:)
http://www.rent-a-home.com.au/?a_aid=auslegal