So, without skunking the deal by getting too explicit, it appears my current employer wants to offer me a job in (ha) sunny Melbourne.
Great. I’ve always fancied seeing a bit more of Victoria. Except I’m from Adelaide and my only experience of Melbourne was a weekend trip with my dad when I was about twelve and a layover for a flight to Brisbane a few years later. If it was Sydney I’d be fine, but it’s not so I’m not.
I’ve made no guarantees about accepting yet, but if I do I need some help…
Neither hubby nor I drive. So if we did move, we’d need the following criteria to be met:
Easily accessible to my office in Burwood East by public transport.
In fact, easily accessible to most parts of the city by public transport.
Relatively non-expensive. For comparison, I’m paying $160wk here now. I know I’m very unlikely to get a comparable rent amount in Melbourne, but that gives you an idea of my baseline and what I consider “non-expensive”.
I’m still in discussion with both hubby and my employer about what this will mean for me. Details are being hashed out. But hubby will be more amenable (as will I) should we find that we would be able to find a comparable living rate over there to what we have here.
RealEstate.com.au might be a big help for scoping out housing prices in the area. I searched for Burwood East and got a list of matches for the suburb, but it looks like a different price bracket than you’re used to. Check it out.
I took a look at Connex’s website and it appears to me that Burwood is on the Alamein line (but I’m not a regular traveller in the city so I’m not really confident about that stuff). Here’s Connex and here’s a journey planner.
You might try searching RealEstate.com.au for a suburb with reasonable rentals and then use the journey planner to work out how much travel would be involved.
I don’t think you’ll have much luck at that price range. I’m in an average quality apartment in a nice-but-not-expensive suburb, and am paying $250 a week.
However, I don’t have a car, and use public transport quite a lot. You shouldn’t have too much of a problem with using it, especially if you find a home near a tram or train line. Or even near a bus route.
Well, there’s no guarantee I’m going yet. Lotta things to consider!
GuanoLad - That’s cool, I grok I’m not going to be able to pay as little as I’m paying here (I’m slumming it in Parafield Gardens, if you know Adelaide at all). $250 is potentially in my price range, I’m just more trying to get a feel for if my options are going to be more towards the $200 side of $250 or the $300 side of $250.
Truthfully at the moment, I’m not even sure I’m going. They haven’t given me a salary range yet, or a start date. It’s all in negotiation at the moment. And hubby’s not really chuffed about the idea of having to leave his employer of 2 years. He may or may not be able to get a job with them in Melbourne. I understand why he’s not really thrilled to bits. Personally I’m all kinds of torn here. My job is moving to Melbourne whether I like it or not. Regardless of if I follow it. So I can either stay here, hubby’s in a damned good paying job (they’re trying to get him a raise to $30 an hour), and look for other work. Or we can pack everything up, I get a better paying job than I’m in now, but he’s got the potential of losing his job and having to look for work in a whole new city again.
There should be buses from neighboring suburbs like Box Hill, Vermont, Nunawading, etc. And as Cazzle said, anything on the Alamein line should get you there.
Box Hill is probably your best bet. It’s a bus hub and a major train station on the Belgrave/Lilydale line and from recollection is maybe a 20-30 minute trip to the city. I also seem to remember there being a shopping centre in Nunawading which had a lot of buses.
Generally in Melbourne there’s decent public transport going towards the city. For instance in Box Hill you could take a train, bus or tram to the CBD. So if your husband finds a job in the Eastern suburbs or in the city it should be no problem. But if he has to work in the West/North/South suburbs he’ll have limited public transport options that likely involve a couple of changeovers.
I quickly checked on realestate.com.au and it seems that for the mid $200s in Box Hill you’ll get a decent 1 bedroom apartment or a crappy 2 bedroom apartment.
Thanks for the good wishes and help folks, but it ain’t happening.
They offered me $48k to uproot my husband from his job and move to melbourne in seven weeks. They refused to offer relocation money because I’m not yet a permanent employee and they wouldn’t make me one until after I got over there (on my own dime).
I told them I would need at least $60k plus relocation costs to make it worthwhile, because my husband would be out of a job if we just up and moved. They didn’t even bother to negotiate with me.
Maybe that was me but I’m now living in Brisbane having moved here earlier in the year from Auckland. My son is looking for a place to rent in Adelaide but there didn’t seem to be much around under $250 in the western suburbs. I was very surprised to hear you were renting for $160 but I doubt he would like to travel each day from Parafield Gardens.
Sorry for the hijack Sierra Indigo best of luck with the move if you go ahead.
We’re severely slumming it here, I mean bad stylie. We’re in an ex-housing trust semi that’s in a street full of either ex or current housing trust semis, right behind Greenfields railway station, surrounded by dole bludgers, disability pensioners, sole parent pensioners and various other sundry non-working types (luckily our wall-neighbour is a single nurse who works shifts and has no kids). The other half of our house was burnt out before we moved in here. At one point about a year and a half ago we had a 10-person fight just down the road from our house and there’s some warring families in the street who’ll stand at their respective corners screaming at each other I’m under no delusions. $160 is a miracle for a house in most areas.
Mind if I ask where your son is working? I could probably offer some suggestions for other suburbs if I had an idea of how far he had to travel & how he’s travelling. I mean, from Greenfields train station to town on an express train (which is a fair few a day in peak times) it’s about fifteen minutes. 25 if you’re on an all stations run. It’s about the same to drive, because the train line runs more directly than the roads.
Hey I lived for awhile on the edge of a Housing Trust estate in Seaton, I know exactly what you mean. My son is working at West Lakes and will be studying in the city next year. Thank you for your kind offer but all his friends live around the Grange, West Lakes area so he specifically wants something over that side of town.
For the last few years he’s been living with his dad at Broadview which isn’t now working out so he wants to move closer to work and friends. He’s 18 and wants a place to himself, he’s going to find it hard next year paying that rent each week on a part time wage but his mind is made up.
They won’t pay a decent salary or relocation costs, but they’ll drop a couple of grand to fly me to melbourne for two days, put me up in a 4.5 star hotel for a night and give me cabcharge vouchers all so I can hand over my accounts to a billing team who’s already stretched beyond breaking point.
Go fig.
But anyway - is late night shopping in the Melbourne CBD on Thursday or Friday? I’d like to go out and have a look around tonight, but it’s not going to be worth it if everything’s going to be closed.
That’s what I’m afraid of. Unfortunately even some of the Melbournians I’ve spoken to here at work can’t answer me either. Some are saying yes, it’s Thursday AND Friday, others are saying “I’m not sure”.
[ETA]: Thanks GuanoLad, I’m just boggled that people who are actually here, at work, in Melbourne with me don’t know if it’s Late Night Shopping night in town tonight or not (it is in the 'burbs, right? Like the rest of the country?)
Some suburbs are Thursday, and some shops do both days, but I’ve been burned before with expecting a late night Thursday in the CBD, so have tried to remember since then which day it was.
Every so often I’ll forget which it was again, but I’m quite confident it’s Friday.
As a bloody yank, this thread has inspired some ?s-
Y’all pay rent by the week? Seems like a PITA. There are places in the US where you have the option of paying by the week instead of by the month, but it usually means paying more.
You have designated nights that shops stay open? Til when? Most retail places here stay open until 8, at least.
It think it varies. When I’ve paid rent, it’s been fortnightly. But I’ve always paid via direct debit, so the frequency of the payment is really of very little relevance.
Again, it varies from place to place and state to state. In the Sydney CBD most retail-type shops and department stores are open until 6.00pm every day. On Thursdays (our late night shopping day) they’d be open until 9.00pm. In the run-up to Christmas the hours are often extended even later, until about midnight. For the major supermarket chains things are a bit different. The ones around me are open until midnight every night.
Most people pay rent by the week, but not everyone. I pay by the fortnight. If that’s a pain in the arse for you, you are quite welcome to pay by the month (or whatever) in advance. The landlord will be quite happy. And I do pay by the month, although the schedule is fortnightly. For very upscale/expensive places, paying by the month is in the contract usually. This also usually applies for commercial premises.
Store opening hours in Australia are traditionally 9am - 5pm, as decided by the unions 342586532 years ago, although these days there are a lot of exceptions, such as the big supermarkets which are often 7am - 10pm, seven days a week, and a few smaller stores that do their own thing. But generally, walk down the main street of an Australian suburb on a, say, Tuesday evening at 7pm, and everything will be shut except the supermarket, convenience stores, and restaurants. The exception is “late night shopping”, which in Sydney is Thursday night - pretty much everything stays open until 9pm.
Rent is almost always advertised p/w over here. It doesn’t matter what frequency your payments actually are (weekly, fortnightly, monthly), if you go into the real estate agent’s they’ll give the pricing sheet with the per week amount on it.
Some may work out a slight discount if you elect to pay bulk payments (monthly or quarterly in advance) but that’s not a standard thing. Generally if your rent is (forex) $150/wk then if you pay a monthly sum you’ll just be paying $600 a month, no discount.
I’m under no delusions. $160 is a miracle for a house in most areas.