suziew2

The pocket no one knows yet but is starting to trend with its all quiet family friendly neighbourhood. The arty professionals who just grew up out of Brunwick. Greenery parks and veggie patch growers meets your family cyclist with their kids on the weekend. It's your vino records 70's lover, arty nova rich architects, your suburban private school teachers who all seem to wear jiggle arty earnings , your media agency business owners, hipster professionals who wear black rim glasses on the tram.

If you want to be away from the city and the noise in family friendly environment, this is a lovely little community to be in. The view of the other homes and waters gives you that really peaceful, serene environment for you to have quiet time to think, read a book, play a board game with your family, have a picnic with the family, go boating, It is a very down-to- earth, relaxing envrionment for the simple things in life (minus the price tag of certain homes here). It is a good 30 mins drive to Surfers Paradise tourist sector, 1hour to the Gold Coast Airport. You are very much away from the hustle & bustle. I guess the feeling reminds me of North Sydney 30yrs ago.
If you are the type who needs more social interaction, get-togethers, a complete extrovert- then this may not be the suburb for you as you will feel extremely bored & feel like the drive into the popular suburbs too far off.

This area is more for the new generation of young parents (30's) and young people area. It use to be all the 70's babies hippies and surfers who are now all the old baby boomers generation but now with all the new shack-modern style cafes & bars, coastal up market restaurants, it is becoming a cross between New farm in Brisbane and North Sydney. It is very quaint, pretty modern new-age town with Good open spaces and nice wide beaches and foot paths. The only issue is the drive and roads here that need significant work to accomodate the growth of the new wave of people making this town a place to call home. Understand that the young generation will be the next generation looking after this area and having the neccesary facilities are required to keep them here. It is a very alternative living as there does seem to be alot of anti vaxers here.

Its a lovely suburb if it was less crowded and more infrastructure was provided in the last few years to cope with the demand of interstate migration & vacation families. Very hard to get a decent rental, modern facilities place that doesnt look like it was from the 90's. Hastings street are lovely lined with fairy lights however they need to block the cars that come in as it becomes congested with full of fumes from the car's engines.
For some reason there seems to be alot of smokers in the area as well in thr community which is bad when their standing around outside the shops puffing on their ciggies and as a non-smoker, it can be quite triggering walking past.

Lovely peaceful green suburb. Multicultural community with a range of cafes and schools.
Alot of the homes and amenities are abit vintage and 60's dated. Lots of old people still love in these from 40yrs ago. Great place to build a Modern starter double story family home. Only a drive away from Mount Albert, Doncaster & Templestone.

Lots of top public schools here.

Positives: West Footscray is changing, my mother lived here for over 30yrs since the 80s. The nicer pockets is from Summerhill road and maidstone (where st John's catholic primary school is and the western hospital) and Dobson reserve park is (ymca) children services. It's a nicer, safer, community pocket with the line treet streets . The other pocket is the one next to kingsville and Robert's st where Hansen reserve park is. These are the two better locations.

Negatives: The pocket between Essex st and Barkley street heading towards coles central west/braybrook + Tottenham is not as nice or safe. Its abit rough, junkies, random ppl on something talking to you at the bus stop, pretty seedy and noisy. My mother neighbour had her handbag stolen while waiting at the bus stop on Essex + Ashley street.


Sims supermarket is great, classic. New cafes have opened in the area over the years. Library for the elderly and children still there. Just be careful which area your living in.

Braybrook is definitely changing, lots of asians, multicultural area and services that are starting to pop up. Problem is there is still the poor demographic and lots of renters and junkie area. It's an eyesore seeing alot of the homes looking so bad. Units and townhouses are starting to pop up though. Close to Footscray which is starting to develop and change itself. Braybrook and Sunshine use to be areas where house burglaries often happen, walking down ballarat road with all the amount of cars that use to go on was terrible. Hopefully the council hires more people who are more efficient in their council planning services.

Great area with bright views of the Bay, bay street has a range of nice cafes and restaurants for lunch and dinner. The better side is towards the middle and albert park sides. Alot of nice people, typical girlfriends of footy players. But the moment you past the bridge where port melbourne primary school is, you smell all the factories and air pollution of trucks. Dont live in those areas where the factories are if you are asthmatic or want to breathe fresh air as you smell fumes of plastic where the holden, toll, vegemite factories are. There are luxury apartments developments that are trying to sell down that end, best not to purchase as its next to the freeway and pollution is absolutely horrible.

Essendon is an Expensive area, no doubt about it.
Back in the 90s, When you think of Essendon you would think of the TV show Underbelly, Essendon's Football Club, How Italian the community was, and Leafy green suburbs.
Well now its still has that bit of Italian community and leafy green suburbs but now feels a bit like a mix between the Eastern suburbs Brighton mothers and Kew-like Developers. Alot of mothers are stay-at-home mothers raising their children, ushing them to soccer practice or owning a wellness centre. You get the professionals like the dentists, and cosmectic surgeons in the area and alot of luxury home developers living here and of course the local business owners here.
Then you get the white collar workers catching the VERY PACKED Essendon Train in the mornings and it gets really bad when the train DELAYS because there is only one line (craigieburn line which picks up passengers from all the new estate areas!) so you would either get delays or trains arent working which means you have to tram it into the office.

While it is a close family area to live in (20mins Drive non peak hours) into the CBD, I found the Train station to be very frustrating at times.
You get a very Cafe lifestyle here, weekends people are always brunching and bringing their kids out to the local parks. Its got a very nice family vibe.
Brunswick East is the suburb right next to it if you want the hipster lifestyle however Essendon is nice, its just starting to get overcrowded with all the apartments that are starting to pop up and the lost of classical period homes.

The best pocket of East Keilor is from between Niddrie & Milleara Rd, You get all the new young families, working white collar professionals living here, Hip cafes like Mister Hoffman. After Milleara Rd, it is all elderly residents and more lower income, you can see from the change. Lots of new Homes and townhouses in the area to accomondate this. It is a VERY Dog friendly/Fitness neighbourhood, every evening there are dog walkers and the mornings you see joggers who jog to the Mariboynong river and if you prefer cycling, you can cycle to the CBD instead. People would great and say Hi if you have your dog walking or doing the gardening so its a nice quaint polite friendly suburb.

Its a 10min drive to Highpoint Shopping Complex Centre, 20mins drive into the CBD (not in peak hours), 20 min drive to the Airport. The closest train station is Essendon station (5mins drive but hard to find parking). In saying that there are buses that can be caught. You are less then 5min drive into Essendon & Moonee Ponds. If you can't afford Essendon for its expensive homes and dont want Moonee Ponds for its young professional night out or apartments complexes, then East Keilor is you next pocket to live in. There are some lovely parks in Essendon, Aberfeldie, Highpoint.

There are a range of good public and private schools in the area too. East Keilor kinda reminds me of Ivanhoe East/ Hedelberg feel towards it, without the large price tag I would say. We recently moved out of this neighbourhood in the last two years and probably shouldnt have (we had too many friends live in the eastern suburbs) as Traffic congestion isnt as bad with many of the freeways and suburbs to cross to the CBD for work.

The only con is the variety of restaurants available, there are alot of Italian Cuisine and Greek Cuisine is common to get takeaway from as well as kebabs and burgars however not a variety of quality Asian (Japanese, Chinese), or European (French) or Fine dining establishments. Then again Essendon, Moonee Ponds etc don't have any chef hats star dining establishments so you would need to head to the CBD for that.

Lots of chic cafes in the area though that are starting to pop up.

There are just too many development here that have lost its charm. Some of the shops and stores are very old school still and not as safe as others have said, some drug sellers around. If your a homebody and only stay at home to watch TV then this is the area to live in for you because it is an extremeley QUITE NEIGHBOURHOOD, where you DONT even get the community safety feel. People just stay in their homes and avoid their neighbours. Not really friendly. My husband and I work in the city and my daughter travels into Mac Robs by train and unless you get up very early, the trains are over crowded and delayed which means I end up having to drive into the CBD for work, and this itself is really overcrowded.
I live on a street where there was a police drug raid, its awful. I thought our street was nice with the luxury cars in front, We found out on the news guns and cars were taken away. Then another time there was a heroin arrest. This is probably why people just stay indoors and not bother anyone because you dont really know who your neighbours are since everyone keeps to themselves.

I feel sorry for the elderly here, dont feel like the council has much safety and protection for the elderly Most people here are newly young families with young kids under 5 now.

Would like to move to Elsternwick or Cheltenham instead for that neighbourhood community feel.