There seems to be a big divide here in Perth as in Brissy between which side of the river to live and it always seems to divide opinions.
You will soon realise that Perth is vast. We spent 3 weeks all day, every day just driving round and looking at houses. We went NOR, SOR, East & West. Each area is completely different. We have settled SOR in Willetton which is 10 miles to the CBD and is well served by shopping centres and several highways too for easy access. As traffic is not going to be an issue, you are very lucky not to have to worry about this. We have Iinet internet and have 125GB pm and I have also been told that we are in an NBN area.
I agree with the comments about Freo. It is quite bohemian and has a good feel about it and good if you want to live in a town with a good vide and a bit more to do. We found that there are some lovely areas SOR on the coast, but not much else going on. We are 10 mins to the nearest river beach at Attadale and were there last night. If we want a proper beach then the nearest will be Leighton Beach slightly north of Freo. We can drive or take public transport into the city in the evenings without any fuss too.
We liked NOR and preferred the beaches up there, but just could not find a suitable home in an area that we liked within our budget.
The Hills are stunning and really beautiful, but we are not ready to live there at the moment.
We rented a short term unit in Yokine. Yokine gets a bit of a bad rep, but to be fair, we never saw anything untoward and felt perfectly safe there and would have rented there, again if there was something suitable within our budget. Yokine is 4 miles to the city.
What we found was that there is a lot of hoons over here (boy racers) and you may well see the tyre marks all over the roads and this put us off as we did not envisage the thought of being woken up in the early hours each night.
If you are single and want a bit of nightlife then I would say stay nearer to the city. East Vic Park has a lot of good restaurants and bars etc. Not far from Crown Casino (we were there on Sat night and it was heaving). Mount Lawley, Subi, Leederville, Como are really good areas and have lots of units. We have also been told that Maylands is good for singles too.
If you check out www.streetadviser.com.au, it really helps to narrow down areas and read other people's comments.