Hi Debbie,
I like it here in Leeming, older established suburb, houses generally on bigish blocks and wide streets. Minlady also lives here. I work in Armadale, which is a 20 - 25 min drive to work, against the flow of traffic coming into the city. Melville City has lots of nice suburbs in it (some a bit out of my price range as they're in the millions). Surrounding suburbs are also nice. For us personally, it's a great location, as we're only 10 mins from the city by train, and 20 mins from Freo. I'm not sure about driving times to attadale and Rockingham though as never been. You're in commutable distance to Alma street at Freo, Armadale, St. John of God at Murdoch and Subiaco, Perth Clinic, Royal Perth (as examples) so lots of areas to choose from. We are close to 2 rec centres, and Melville aquatic centre, Garden City shopping centre at Booragoon, Leeming has a small mall of about 40 shops, but within a 10 min driving distance we have 2 other shopping centres plus a cinema. Schools have good reputations and there are also private schools nearby. House prices are probably from the $500,00 + mark. Just looking in the Melville Times (local paper), the L J Hooker office currently shows 5 properties from $510,00 - $875,000 so quite a big price range.
We're freezing at the moment, even at work they're conserving energy and half the time I'm glad to get out in the car to have the heater on!! It does feel colder inside than outside sometimes.
Hope some of this helps, you can also look on
Australia migration - suburb profiles, accommodation, schools, real estate, jobs in Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Darwin and Hobart as it gives comments on suburbs. Leeming was somewhere within our circle of suburbs to consider, but we'd not actually thought of living here. Got a 12 week furnished rental here, liked the area, kids settled in school so decided to stay.
All the best .. Ali x