best location?

[jon70]

Hi All,
Hopefully I will soon have a sponsorship & job offer from rm williams Bootmakers (Salisbury) so I am looking at best location for my young family to live wife and children 2,6 & 8. Decent areas for houses schools shops etc,etc. I would probably need to rent first until we sell our house here in the UK.
Thanks in advance

[Rachiegarlo]

Salisbury Heights, Golden Grove, Tea Tree Gully area if you want to be fairly close to your job. Or a little bit further is Andrews Farm and Gawler. There are a choice of good schools in these areas, shopping centres etc.I'm sure some people who live in these areas will tell you in more detail soon.

[Diane]

Any of the suburbs down the North East side would be good, depending on your budget. Do a search on www.realestate.com.au and look at the following suburbs for an idea, bearing in mind that if a suburb looks particularly cheap in comparison to others, there may be a reason for it! Also consider whether you want an older style property that may need a bit of tlc, but will probably be on a larger plot, or a newer style, low maintenance place that may not have quite as big a garden. Bear in mind that larger gardens are a lot of work here in terms of watering during the summer months, and there are a lot of "reserves" where children can play safely, so you might settle for a smaller plot close to a reserve. Most primary schools around this area are very good - again, consider whether you are looking at state or private schools for your children (most private schools are affiliated to a religion, so depends whether that is something you strongly want, or strongly don't want), and a lot of the schools have kindies (pre-schools) attached to/associated with them.

Fairview Park, Vista, Tea Tree Gully, Wynn Vale, Surrey Downs, Highbury, Dernancourt, Athelstone, Salisbury Heights, Golden Grove are good starting points.

www.northeast.net.au is a good site with general information about this side of town - there is a "Schools" link on there which also as kindergartens on.

Alternatively you could look at somewhere further north like Gawler and it's surrounds - this is a town that is expecting a lot of growth in the next few years - doubling its population - or if you like modern and lively, consider somewhere like Mawson Lakes.

Good luck and congratulations on the job offer - they do make excedingly good boots at RM Williams....

Diane

[maxxangel]

Congratulations on the job offer! In a way it makes it easier to look at where you want to live.

Salisbury tends to have a bit of a stigma attached to it, but it doesn't seem to be as bad as Elizabeth's! The North East is a popular area. One tip for avoiding a bad area is to look at general house prices. If you see a sudden drop in them for a particular area (ie: Elizabeth) then you should probably avoid it. Mawson Lakes is beautiful. Not much in the way of land per house, but lots of parks and pretty communal areas. Way out of our price range though! We are at Ridgehaven in the North East, which is middling in house prices. Golden Grove and Greenwith gets more pricey as do some of the other local suburbs. Modbury tends to be cheaper as it's on the doorstep of the Tea Tree Plaza.

School wise it depends on whether you can pay for private or not. I've never heard any complaints on private schools. Golden Grove seems to be popular school wise. Public schools can be hit or miss. We've found an excellent school in Ridgehaven Primary, but I've heard that other local ones aren't so good.

Hope this helps,
Cara