Bungendore Vs Canberra Suburbs

bluuu said :

You’ll find that a lot of Canberrans think a 15min commute is more than enough.

Having wasted a good chunk of my life in a nearly two hour commute each morning to get to Sydney CBD before moving to Canberra, 15 minutes suits me just fine!

ConanOfCooma said :

Cooma to Canberra commute is ok, takes an hour. Only hassle is the snow tourists in winter, drivers from Royalla and the delightful bus drivers from Deanes…

Rental prices are far cheaper down that way, and more than offset the $250 – $300 per fortnight fuel.

Agree.

You’ll find that a lot of Canberrans think a 15min commute is more than enough. Queanbeyan is another country and South Tuggeranong is in woop woop. I used to drive 30minutes from Tuggeranong to uni and all my friends found that way too far away, never visited and made me go to North Canberra all the time.

…and the community still continues to think that the rising greenhouse gas concentrations are always someone else’s fault. I guess you could justify the lifestyle choice by saying it’s not just you but everyone else out there as well. Enjoy riding on the planet’s back while you can, eh?

There is an earlier thread somewhere on here about the pros and cons of Braidwood. Worth having a look.

I’m also interested in this topic. I see real value in commuting but anything more than 45 minutes is expensive and a drain on family life. I’d love some more experiences to compare.

There’s a few other places to consider too – Collector, Sutton, Michelago, Yass.

Having lived in Bungendore for most of 2008 & 2009, and worked in Canberra during that period, I’d advise anyone doing so to accept you will spend a lot of time in your car. Even just the most trivial things when living in the suburbs turn into a major logistical operation when you’re half an hour from the city.
Price wise, Bungendore is not cheap with real estate etc comparing to Canberra’s prices. There’s also a lot of the infrastructure that isn’t the same – you’ll get used to never eating takeaways etc because they simply aren’t there. And outside the village itself, broadband internet is very limited.
I also had two landlords in the period I lived out there who were woeful. The first was negligent, and the second was a criminal. So that left a foul taste from the whole experience.
Captains Flat, which is slightly further from Canberra, I haven’t lived in but considered when we were buying property. It’s a lot cheaper in terms of real estate, but has even less infrastructure in terms of shops, fuel, and everything else. Real estate’s stupidly cheap, but you might have to balance that with the fuel and wear & tear on your car. Not to mention the extra hour in commuting time.

It might also depend on whether you are single, in a relationship and or have a family. As the social arrangements in your life will play a big role in how practical it might be to live in the satellite towns and villages.

For instance, if you have young kids that go to school in say Bungendore and you and you partner both work in Canberra, you will need arrangements for their care after school that may come at a cost. Alternately if they go to school in Canberra there may be more commuting on weekends if they are involved in school sports or to attend the inevitable birthday parties and play dates – A round trip from Bungendore to Canberra would be roughly 100km and you might end up doing it twice on a weekend.

Keep in mind too that there are only so many roads into Canberra and the weekday traffic can get pretty heavy.

That said, the satellite towns offer a great lifestyle that can’t be found in the suburbs, and you may find that you get more for your money in terms of what say $500,000 might get you in Bungendore vs. say Belconnen, Weston Creek or Amaroo.

If you’re working north of the lake, Goulburn to Canberra is an hour, and housing is dirt cheap. $260K/260pw will get you a nice three bedroom bungalow, and $300K will buy you a McMansion if you have more modern tastes. Decent sized shopping precinct (all the shops I had to drive all over Canberra for are in one place ten minutes from home), restaurants, clubs, a theatre company, and a cinema. We lease our cars and the smaller one costs us about $500 per month including everything – the car, the insurance, the servicing and the fuel – so it’s actually very economical.

I live in an apartment that has just about everything I need within walking distance, if not, then a short pushbike ride. It’s a life style choice, I sacrifice a back yard and a shed for convenience and amenity, and I wouldn’t change it for anything. I like being able to walk to work, or to a pub or out to dinner on the weekend and not worry about having an extra glass of wine because I have to drive home. Stroll down to Civic or Dickson just for a pleasant walk… I could go on…

In saying that however, some people want to live in suburbia, out in the urban sprawl with nothing nearby and need to get in a car just to pick up some milk. A commute to the City from south Tuggeranong is probably about the same as Bungendore. In terms of prices, check out allhomes.com.au. In terms of a rural setting, if that’s what you are after, then some of Canberra’s fringes feel pretty outback. There is also lots of native bushland in and around Canberra (even walking distance from the city centre). So if you have the money, you can buy a house on a large block baking onto quite a sizeable nature reserve and walk to your job on the 10th floor of an office building.

Cooma to Canberra commute is ok, takes an hour. Only hassle is the snow tourists in winter, drivers from Royalla and the delightful bus drivers from Deanes…

Rental prices are far cheaper down that way, and more than offset the $250 – $300 per fortnight fuel.