Where to live in Brisbane (for a new arrival from UK)

We arrived in Brisbane to a lovely holiday apartment provided by my new employer.
A 3 bed apartment in what estate agents would call the highly desirable area of New Farm. Views of Brisbane river, opposite the popular New Farm Park with giant kids play area, and just a 20 minute walk to work. Perfect, except its such a desirable area the apartment was probably worth $2,000,000. And weekly rent was just under $1000.

So we had a month to find somewhere more permanent to live while we waited for all our possessions to arrive.

We had several criteria.

1. Near a train station that would get me to work without too much fuss.

2. Near a beach, or have a pool.

3. Near good schools.

4. Be a nice neighbourhood.

5. Cost a maximum of $600 a week to rent.

6. Have at least 4 bedrooms preferably 5.


Some candidates were Shorncliffe, Sandgate, BaldHills, Bracken Ridge.

Fortunately there is one main website for home buying/rental

http://brisbane.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=sf&s=qld&t=ren&cc=&ty=&snf=rbs&cu=OBC

After viewing several places none of which quite ticked enough boxes we extended our search and eventually found somewhere south of the river in Graceville, a very nice area very close to a train station, just 20 minutes to the town center, very good local state schools. Five minute drive to a big shopping center (Indooroopilly).

No where near a beach but it has a pool.

Unfortunately the house wasnt available for a month until after we needed it so we moved to Redcliffe (Scarborough specifically) for a month.

This meant the kids couldn't start school yet, and I had quite a commute (90 mins each way) half by bus half by train. The train from Sandgate to Brisbane(Brunswick street, the stop for Fortitude valley) stops 14 times and takes quite a while to get into the town, but travelling by car can take just as long or longer if you don't set off early enough. (Even though its only 30 km). On the bright side we were 200 meters from Scarboroughs award winning beach. The kids had a great time playing on the beach every day and we bought a few fishing rods and did a bit of fishing as well as snorkeling.

With hindsight I now wish we had ended up permanently living by a beach. But Brisbane doesn't really have any beaches they are all on the outskirts, shorncliffe would have been perfect but houses just dont come up very often with enough rooms for our family.

If you want to check train timetables for Brisbane here's the link:

http://www.transinfo.qld.gov.au/

Incidentally train charges are less than half of the UK. I'm commuting a similar distance to the UK but paying $80 (£40) a month instead of £106. And so far the trains have been far more reliable than the UK.