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Some of the reviews here probably aren't entirely representative of Mooroolbark given the community is changing. This is an area of growth (massive price increases over the last couple years) with a lot of new people arriving. There are still many established households that have been here for a long time.

Property: Most of the long term established people a beginning to realise how much their property has gone up in value and are cashing out given they don’t like the change (read medium density development). There is quite a lot of ‘mum and dad’ developers buying the full blocks, chopping up the land and reselling the original house (with half the land) for the same price. This makes it difficult for new starters wanting a house on a full block.

Schools: Mooroolbark has a number of primary schools and enables a lot of choice. Make sure you look around though as some of these schools are small and might be limiting for your child. There tends to be few high schools in the area and tend to be large in student enrolments – not a negative or positive necessarily as it depends on your child’s learning style.

Greenspace: Lots of it and is the biggest selling point that you discuss with your friends at BBQ’s without starting a debate. Close to the yarra valley and Dandenong ranges.

Night life: There isn’t much of a night life. Restaurants are reasonably busy of an evening along brice ave and Manchester rd but once dinner is done the it’s pretty quiet. I have never had a problem walking around at day or night and don’t feel any more/less unsafe then other areas around Melbourne.

Crime: Let’s not be ignorant here; there is undesirable activity happening in Mooroolbark just like there is anywhere else. Being connected to the local emergency services I get to witness first hand a lot of it. However, my experience and the crimes stats indicate that Mooroolbark is fairly normal.

Transport: Generally it’s the lilydale line (train) for city commuters and mostly driving. I personally found this difficult when I first moved to Mooroolbark. Majority people exclusively drive their car. The yarra ranges council suck at infrastructure for walking and riding bikes. Take the development at the “five ways” roundabouts for example – 50ish townhouses are built along Manchester Road increasing the density and Yarra Ranges allows the pedestrian crossing to be REMOVED crossing Manchester road. Not a lot of logic there. Let’s Hope when Hungry Jacks is built at the five ways (soon), more consideration will be taken regarding this. The Manchester rd railway crossing is on the state government’s to-be-removed list but will not happen not for a while yet. At this stage there is not enough parking at the train station for train commuters. Naturally the community has improvised and overload the reserve opposite Hookey Park everyday.

Mooroolbark terrace: on Brice ave/Bathurst st/Charles st is a sad old shopping centre that has needed to be scrapped years ago. Thankfully change is in the air as most of the shops are empty making way for development. Rumours suggest that a large number of apartments on top of a new shopping centre will be built – I would speculate that Woolworths would be behind such a project.
Coles: are always busy most of the time like most suburban areas. The area is starting to connect well with the red earth community centre, cafes, Library, brice st shops and train/bus station.
Chirnside park shopping centre: although not Mooroolbark, it services the area. Currently in the planning stage for a multimillion dollar upgrade.
Croydon: also not Mooroolbark but has most things you need close by.
Food: Locals will understand this – pizza or pizza or pizza or fish and chips or fish and chips or fish and chips or fish and chips, indian, thai, kebab, maccers, kfc. Basically there is not a lot of variety.

Work: Next to nobody works in Mooroolbark as there is little industry. It’s a mobile workforce where most people must commute (drive/train) out of Mooroolbark everyday to get to work. Take a look at the census data that backs this up.

These reviews are always interesting to see what people think, and you can see it tends to be divided to extremes– die hard passionate defending their decision to live here or complete negative who can’t see a single positive at all. Mooroolbark fits in the middle. You might be reading this because you want to move to the area because you can no longer afford to buy into a closer suburb. I was the same a number of years ago and don’t regret it. Mooroolbark is not amazing and but terrible either. The area is changing for the better.