I'm not sure if I can add more to what's been said, but I'll try.

I grew up in Melbourne and lived there until I went to boarding school at 14 in the States. At the moment I'm in Melbourne and live here for about four months of the year.

Choosing a place to live will be very hard (but in a pleasant way) just so many great suburbs to choose from. Our family home was in Toorak, so I'm very familiar with that area and would be happy to address any questions about it. I found it a great place to live, nice parks, shops, cafes, close to the city and friendly people.

They only thing would be whether you're looking at an house or apartment. The nicest parts are really suburban with large family homes - this is how I grew up. However if you're looking at apartments I find that a lot of the ones in Toorak are old 70s style affairs which are overpriced and trade off the suburbs name.

In short for me, Toorak - house, yes, apartment, no.

As mentioned the other inner east suburbs are also quite nice, areas like Hawthorn and Camberwell again have some nice homes, they also have some terrible apartment blocks but some of the new developments are quite nice.
Malvern and Glen Iris are also good areas.

I currently live in an apartment that is part of the Park Hyatt development in the city. Living in the city doesn't suit everyone but it also worth considering.

I'm not a fan of the inner bay side suburbs - but that's just me - there's certainly nothing wrong with them. Even some of the outer eastern suburbs such as Mt Waverly are fine if you want to save some money (fairly long train trip into the city though).


Also plenty of great golf courses. I'm a member at Royal Melbourne and the folks there are superb. I'm also a member at a course down on Cape Shank, my favorite course in Melbourne. It's on the coast just under an hour out of town. There's quite a few nice public courses around town which are also great for a hit. 18 holes at yarra bend for example is only about $20. Pretty much all the public courses are fine - only downside is they can get pretty crowded.


http://domain.com.au is good to get a feel for property.