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If you want to blow all your salary on rent- Surry Hills/Paddington/Redfern are nice and you can walk to work- it will be expensive though. If you’re happy with a 15-30 min commute- erskineville, Newtown, marrickville, or if you like to be close to the beach- Bondi/Coogee
Were in similar situation 1.5 years ago. Inspected + 25 properties and took our time in deciding. Points below:
1. East is hectic, expensive, gentrified and a bit snobby. Good restaurants, night and night life. Closer to beach (Paddington, Darlinghurst, Potts Point, Woollahra, Edgecliff)
2. Inner west is less expensive than east, but still pricey. Pockets of activity but more family friendly in general. You’ll find some more interesting kooky shops here (Marrickville, NewTown, Glebe, Petersham) Would not venture further west than Ashfield unless you are really pressured on budget.
3. North is for families. Good nature, better traffic (except M1).
4. Directly south is pretty much owned by Meriton and looks a bit like the old Eastern European cities build to house as many people as possible for as low a price as possible. Overall, not much going on except housing and a good Bunnings. Short trip to IKEA though for furniture purchase. (Waterloo, Mascot, Green Square). Surry hills has some OK places around Crown Street, but is not what it is generally hyped up to be.
5. Beaches are expensive and the commute to Town Hall is long whether you go Bondi/Bronte/Coogee or the Northern beaches. You gotta really love water for this to be worth it.
6. CBD (incl Haymarket) lacks atmosphere and seem to be more “storage of humans” than actual homes. We inspected a 2 bedder where they literally had 4 bunk beds in each room. That’s 16 peolple sharing a 2 bedder(!!!).
Congrats on your new job and upcoming move.
Basically every train line goes to Town Hall, and you could also choose to be the light rail line which stops at Town Hall too. Are you open to buses for your commute? Do you have a cap on how long you’ll want to travel?
As I’m sure you’re seeing rent is expensive and there isn’t a lot of difference in cost through all the inner city neighbourhoods.
Sydney is a collection of very different suburbs though, so to help narrow down what neighbourhoods might suit you, what kind of lifestyle do you want? Do you want to be close to a beach? Or somewhere with more of a villagey/community feel? Or somewhere with access to nightlife?
Check out Rozelle/Balmain for village feel, nice cafes, easy access to city, parks, etc. If you live in Rozelle close to victoria road, getting to Town Hall is super easy with constant buses. Leichhardt’s also a good option. Lilyfield’s a small quiet neighborhood, lots of parks, pool etc nearby and still very close to Leichhardt and Rozelle/Balmain but maybe too quiet (great if you have a young family). Glebe’s also great. I’ve lived around this area for the past 7 years and love it so might be biased. Good luck!
You will have extreme difficulty securing a rental in the areas mentioned above. There's something of a rental crisis here in Sydney atm with good properties in Randwick (for eg.) getting up to 70 people for a viewing.
Don't see this getting resolved in the next 4 months, so please do keep this in mind.
If you want beach, I would honestly recommend Manly over the eastern beaches (but you really need to be close to Manly Wharf if you don’t have a car). The commute is 25 min on the ferry and then 10 min on either light rail or train to town hall - which is much better than the overcrowded bus from Bondi which takes 40-50min in peak hour.
I love the East (Darlinghurst / Surry Hills / Paddington / Potts Point / Elizabeth Bay / Double Bay etc) and live very easily without a Car. There is great proximity to everything I need and can walk to just about anything in less than 20 minutes, but the negative comments above about the East being expensive and hard to get into are completely true.
Inner south (Mascot / Waterloo / Zetland etc) is very clinical but most of the housing stock is quite new so you would have a nice modern apartment but no vibe.
I haven’t spent much time in the inner west but have heard lots of good things and my general impression is that it is cheaper, less gentrified and more diverse than the east.
The CBD is pretty soulless and I would recommend avoiding - it’s great to live near but wouldn’t live in it.
North shore - don’t even bother looking at it if you don’t want to buy a car.
Outer south / west / north I wouldn’t recommend without a car and in any event the housing isn’t actually cheaper, you just get more (eg you’d still pay the same $ amount in rent but you would get a house for the same price as an inner city apartment)
Go for Kensington, 10mins by tram to Central Station and cheaper if u want to save big bucks.
Move to Balmain.
Going to throw an option that hasn't been mentioned (can you tell I'm a Westie? 🤣)
Rhodes is about a 20-30 minute train in to the city (20 to Wynyard another 4 to town hall and another 3 to central).
Rent is pretty decent, it's got a pretty good vibe to it - definitely apartment life. Fairly young crowd but not crazy nightlife. Most places are pretty walkable to the station.
Epping and Chatswood are a similar light but a little busier (more people but also more local shops and things to lean on) - the tricky bit in those places is getting a place that's a short walk to the station). Also that extends your commute to ~30 minutes.
You won't really NEED a car but if you want to interact with ALL the good parts of Sydney and enjoying all it has to offer I reckon I'd recommend getting a car - even if it is a car share service like goget.
There's a lot to see and experience in Sydney whether it's out on the shore (can't recommend La Perouse coastal hikes enough!) or whether it's right out in greater western sydney (Auburn for the best Lebanese food you've ever had, Harris Park if you want REAL Indian food), and so much more. Those areas are a lot more suburban than the city and frankly you'll never hear about it from a lot of people who live in the eastern suburbs or inner west because frankly I don't think a lot of them ever come out here so they've just never heard about it. (There's plenty of anti-west bias tbh hahaha).
So yeah wherever you live I'd challenge the no-car lifestyle. I've lived in a few cities and other than London or NYC or Paris I'd always ALWAYS recommend a car if you want to really explore a new city or country.
Moved here couple years ago and I’d suggest living close to the city initially to meet people and then move farther out.
So far I have enjoyed living in Milsons Point (with 1 flatmate) without a car.
- under 10 mins to Town Hall (2 stops by train)
- super easy access (by train, bus and ferry) to the city to make new friends and attend events
- peaceful neighborhood and lots of greenery (yet very close to the city)
- right by the harbour (no beach access however)
- newer apartments than you can find in the east and surry, Redfern, etc.
- more expensive than the west and south
I lived in the CBD for my first 6 years in Sydney and loved it. I was in the new development in Barangaroo and would highly recommend. Walked everywhere and barely used my car which means you could actually rent out the parking space if you’re not going to have a car yourself.
Depends if you're single, a family of 4, etc. I was earning around that with a family of 4 and stayed in the CBD.