Living In And Around Wollongong?

[MBS206]

i live here in GONG and yes it is more quieter than sydney and alot safer too....mmmnn about rent yes and no...

Safer all depends on where you live.

Considering in our tiny lol community we have 2 of the 12 most dangerous nightclubs in the state... We have a pretty badncrime rate in a fair few areas...

[Humbla]

Come down the coast a bit to Nowra,lovely place to live,an lovely beaches an stuff,been here 10 years just love it.

[Luke_GTS-T]

awesome place to live.

i love the mountains surrounding wollongong which make for some fun driving.

however there are some pretty putrid people(bogans) in the mall which is never pleasant.

all up though, the goods out weigh the bads.

[N-DAWG]

Older thread, but hey! All the points above are pretty much spot on! I've been on the hunt for the last month looking for rentals down there prior to moving back in a couple of weeks. I'm looking at spending $310 a week on a 2bed/2bathroom in fairy meadow, but in the end it's either pay more for being reasonably central and having a newer place that's a lot more secured than a lot of the places close to the CBD.

I considered Shellharbour and in particular its surrounding suburbs like Albion Park, but the savings on rent balance out in the form of additional travel costs. Shellharbour is a really nice place to live and it is indeed pretty much its own city.

Wollongong has a lot of diversity in the type of people that live there both for better and worse.. or stereotypically speaking, it has its share of bogans and junkies and people who generally ruin it for others. Fortunately to an extent a lot of it is based on areas so its somewhat easy to avoid and ignore.

One trend I have noticed though is that if you are looking to buy a place, Wollongong's housing market has dropped somewhat. The rent on the other hand isn't cheap if you want something decent. If you want parking, prepare to pay more again. Plenty of <$300 places if you don't need a place to park. Secure parking (ie. something that isn't as simple as walking up to your car from the footpath) will put the costs up a bit more again.

To give a comparison though of rent vs buy, the apartment I'm looking at renting for $310 a week is in a complex of many which sell between $229k for a 1bedroom, and from $260 odd to $290k for the 2 bedroom. So it's not too bad if you're in the market to buy a place. Even places in Cordeaux Heights can be had for quite reasonable money than what it was a number of years ago. I am comparing of course to the market up here in Brisbane where $300 a week in the suburb of Mt Gravatt which is nice and close to everything like Wollongong and not too far from the city, will fetch you more-or-less a dump! No exaggeration.

If you want to compare costs of living by State, I'm currently sharing with my partner in Alexandra Hills, it's $295 a week, it's comparable to what you would spend $250 a week in Wollongong, both in the place and the neighbourhood of this street; I travel 40 minutes to work and back every day, the CBD is around 35-40mins on a good day with little traffic, and if you want to catch public transport, you can easily spend $50 per working week on bus fares with the way it's gone up in recent times! At least in Wollongong, even if you spend around $300 pw on rent, you have free shuttle bus service if you're within that vicinity of the CBD.

Where Wollongong is bad though is cost of insuring a Skyline (completely relevant in this thread). I'm preparing to spend an additional $40 per month with JustCar on top of my currently $110 p/month on pay-by-the-month terms with a rating 2. Excess will go up too. I'm 24.

Another great thing about Wollongong, almost everything you need to get to is generally a short drive. CBD, Tafe, Uni, Shopping Centres, Beaches, Restaurants, Cafes.. they're all nice and close if you're living closer to the CBD. Say Wollongong, Gwynville, Figtree, Fairy Meadow, Corrimal to give an idea. My partner doesn't drive, my work is in Port Kembla, so it's great to have free transport for her locally which is straight away going to save $50 a week in our budget.

What sucks if you drive, parking meters! And from what I hear, the parking inspectors in Wollongong aren't very lenient by any stretch of the imagination! But if you live close enough to a shuttle bus stop and don't absolutely need the car, it's not a huge deal to catch transport to and from the CBD, or save the trip till the weekend and get the free parking at Crown St Mall. If you're planning on going to Wollongong Uni then the free bus is going to save a lot in both travel and uni parking also!

In summary though, Wollongong is a place that people either love or hate, or both. Like any place really.

Anywho, that's my two cents worth, bit all over the place, but you get the idea

[N1GTR]

It's a nothing commute to nasho, mac pass, sea cliff bridge and fairly close to MDTC and Sutton road / sdma (dutton rally stage and hillclimb) also Huntley hillclimb.

Yes the southerners are spoiled for car places.

[SYK-200]

come to cordeaux heights, i live their, heaps quite and usually friendly people around and + we can work on my s14/r33/180sx

[oweban]

rep to southern suburbs no matter what everyone else says

well... my part anyway

[tbag]

I'm with cpd, southern burbs represent

[jawrgy]

I know ill get flamed but basing your lifestyle decisions on the locality of a racetrack to your house just doesn't sound right. Unless its your job or your close to retirement and cars are your life other than that it sounds a big boganish, if thats a word...

[oweban]

I know ill get flamed but basing your lifestyle decisions on the locality of a racetrack to your house just doesn't sound right. Unless its your job or your close to retirement and cars are your life other than that it sounds a big boganish, if thats a word...

Fair call; if that's the only factor then it is a bit meh. But when it comes down to a few places offer similar lifestyles, similar jobs, pay, living conditions etc, and then there's tracks closer, it becomes a bit of a +5 to that idea.

Totally agree though, other things come first

[GTR-N1]

Allergy-wise, the grasslands of Albury are so much worse than living near the sea (where you have the land breeze/sea breeze rotations).

Pollens once landing on the water go nowhere.

Chemists in places like Thirroul & Corrimal sell many less puffer sprays than inland.

[Frosty]

Chemists in places like Thirroul & Corrimal sell many less puffer sprays than inland.

LOL

Gong FTW, agree tho there are some bogans and the driveways are shit. just ripped my f*** bar off again :@ (maybe thats just mine) plenty to do here tho not much of a car scene anymore thanks to 5.0 busting everyones balls on regular occassions!! Other than that the people are easying going and friendly and everyone will have a chat with you no matter what

[N-DAWG]

Back in the Gong and lovin it! Though I really forgot what the car scene/car taste was like around here