Rouse Hill Suburb Review

Incredibly well-equipped suburb offers every amenity one could want, with plenty of greenery as well - but if you live here, you’ll likely spend a lot of your time here, too.

Summary: Packed to the brim with a staggering array of housing options small, medium and large, Rouse Hill offers an extensive array of places to live for nearly all life stages and budget levels. Formerly a region of lush pastureland, it’s now a still-mostly-green land of rapid change with nearly every vacant block currently under some sort of development. This has brought with it a massive array of demographic shift, amenities and services for families in particular – a necessity given its access times & traffic issues to and from Sydney city.

Key stats

How you perceive Rouse Hill as a suburb will likely depend exactly on which side of the “development is good for Sydney” fence you fall as an individual.

Whether this is a well-balanced mix that allows you to live amongst some lovely greenery and then head into a lively retail and shopping hub when the mood strikes, or a testament to rapid over-development ruining a tranquil piece of countryside is almost entirely in the eye of the beholder.

Rouse Hill is both, and neither, at the same time. One thing’s for certain, however: this is an incredibly family-friendly suburb that offers the chance at more affordable personal space than many similar demographic suburbs closer to Sydney city.

There’s still plenty of “new shine” on Rouse Hill in general owing to all this new development.

Many of its houses and apartment blocks have only had construction finished within the last several years, and many still are in multiple stages of development. As a result, most of its streetscape is still clean and new – particularly in areas such as its south-west branching out along Caddies Boulevard.

The mixture of smaller-sized modern two-story houses designed to maximise space yet still provide a yard on a small-ish block, and new age slick mid-rise apartment buildings contrast greatly with more established homes elsewhere in the suburb.

Many of these (relatively) older brick homes are massive and on big blocks that sit right alongside sections of bush and wilderness – one of Rouse Hill’s main strengths.

There’s a substantial amount of greenery still to be found within the suburb – not only the landscaped-by-human-hands type, but proper Aussie bushland as well.

If you’re the type who finds inner Sydney life claustrophobic and a bit of a concrete jungle or miss driving for the actual joy of itself, Rouse Hill offers the chance to hop in the car for a couple of minutes and soon encounter the likes of cows grazing in fields in short order. There’s no doubt an appeal to having more breathing room and fresh air, and Rouse Hill delivers this very well.

It’s also highly parkland-heavy, with its obvious leaning toward families on display. Pretty much every park here is decked out in well-designed playground equipment, some of which are creatively-themed and even offer pool facilities. It’s also interesting in how the old-vs-new parts of the suburb’s parks differ to one another.

On one side, you’ll have these smaller and heavily-manicured slices of greenery, while on the other they’re a little more untamed… and you may just see a sign which you’ll never encounter at your standard inner Sydney park:

Rouse Hill’s space also makes it a suburb in which you’ll likely be spending a lot of time outdoors.

There’s multiple options for walking and biking tracks that wind through the greenery, particularly through the expansive Rouse Hill Regional Park but also closer to the residential areas alongside Caddies Creek and the Centenary Park as well. It’s great for active families, and the kids will have multiple options for sports clubs to take part in.

It’s home to all of the standard sports, soccer and football fields and netball courts one might expect, and additional activities like paintball that smaller and more dense suburbs can’t offer help differentiate it as well.

By far the most obvious new addition to Rouse Hill has been the Metro station, however. It’s been a long time in the making, but the suburb now has “proper” rail connectivity to the city. The results have been a mixed bag.

Teething Pains

While in theory the prospect of a ~55 minute train connection to the city (Metro to Chatswood, then transfer to the CBD) should be a more pleasant alternative to the standard 70-ish minute bus-based commute, this isn’t quite the case. It’s a useful option on weekends and in off-peak, but as a commuting method things aren’t so smooth due to a lack of parking options and semi-chaos in getting to the actual station itself.

Unless you’re lucky enough to live within walking distance of the Metro, you’re likely going to have to get a bus to the station, then go through the whole routine of bus -> Metro -> train as opposed to just hopping on the bus and zoning out for over an hour. The cut in Hillsbus services has only served to exacerbate the issue as well.

Many brave souls choose (or are forced to) drive to work, which is far less than ideal as Rouse Hill’s distance combined with distressed roads makes for a 1.5 hour each way peak (sometimes at best) run into Sydney despite easy access from Windsor Rd to the A2. It’s also brought more and more people into Rouse Hill itself who visit to take advantage of its newly-enhanced amenities.

Rouse Hill Town Centre is now a buzzing district absolutely stacked with almost every recognisable brand name store, outlet and dining option. It’s quite impressive how robust it is, and to its credit it’s been designed in quite a pleasant way. There’s plenty of trendy cafes and restaurants to choose from, and tasteful design elements like fountain plazas and high-ceiling arcades that make it pretty damn nice to shop in.

Say what you want about progress, but it’s undeniably more enjoyable than some of the run-down and dingy older shopping centres many other suburbs in Sydney have to deal with. Major supermarket and department stores such as Target, Big W, Woolworths, all the main banks, even a cinema complex and a Timezone (remember those?) are here.

It’s typically quite busy and not the easiest place to get in and out of, but it’s a great option to have for doing all your shopping or dining before being able to dart back home to peace and quiet pretty quickly.

For a drink, Rouse Hill is home to the iconic The Fiddler – a historic 1800s Irish pub which has had modernised and expanded elements for dining and outdoor entertainment (even with play areas for the little ones) added on. It’s a great little hub for multiple types of entertainment.

All of these stores and restaurants large and small mean the suburb itself is decked out to the point that it’s basically self-contained. Elsewhere there’s big-box warehouse and outlet-type sports and furniture stores, practically every fast food chain, and pet stores and clinics for those with furry friends.

This is a sign you’ll encounter frequently in Rouse Hill

Its mix of parkland, pet stores and the chance to have a yard go hand in hand with making Rouse Hill highly pet-and-family-friendly overall.

Several quality schooling options round out its offerings for those with kids. There’s four major schools and private schooling options to choose from, and multiple fairly large daycare centres for those with younger children as well.

Add these to the prominent array of play equipment and general entertainment for kids dotted throughout the suburb, and Rouse Hill ranks up there as one of the most family-centric suburbs in Sydney we’ve encountered – most of the Hills Shire seems to be leaning this way in general as its demographics shift.

“Rouse Hill ranks up there as one of the most family-centric suburbs in Sydney we’ve encountered.”

This influx of families combines with the development and increasing traffic to mean that Rouse Hill is no longer just the peaceful green hillside it once was.

As with any rapidly developing area, infrastructure needs to be able to cope, and with plenty of ongoing construction still in place, where will all these cars go? There’s plenty more new lots opening up all the time, which is great for relocators but will continue to change the dynamic of the suburb as well.

Price-wise, Rouse Hill is rapidly increasing and you may have “missed the boat” by now for a bargain, but it’s still quite good value considering Sydney averages. If you want newness combined with space, this is the kind of distance from Sydney City you may have to look at, and the dollar value and size ratio of a decent home here may just make everything worth it.

Good quality, decent-sized 3 bedroom homes can be had in Rouse Hill for around the $850,000 mark; add in an extra bedroom and you’ll be pushing the $1+ million mark but typically get a good amount of space in return for your dollar. There are, of course, even more massive exceptions – particularly around the North East of the suburb alongside the bushland there – that go for far higher as well.

For apartment renters, around $450 per week can get you a modest yet new 2-bedroom apartment which will come decked out with modern fittings; stretch things to $500 per week and the quality goes up proportionally even more.

The Verdict

On the surface, Rouse Hill has absolutely everything a family could want for their daily life.

It’s a clean, new and quite pretty suburb with plenty of “house pride” – almost all its homes have pretty front gardens and clean-cut grass, and its public areas are well maintained… at least for the time being. Shops and amenities are on seemingly every corner, and there’s enough entertainment, open space, and liveliness from keeping it feeling like too bland a concentration of suburbia.

As a result, it’s visually appealing if somewhat monotonous in places, and there are some elements of “McMansion” vibes here. The cynic would say that at its core it’s an area with property developers focused on getting new buyers into cookie-cutter homes on minimal deposits, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing given it gives non-rich Sydneysiders a viable option to actually be able to buy something new and not rundown.

As a former temporary Gold Coast resident, Rouse Hill is very reminiscent of pop up suburbs like Coomera and the resulting amenities and infrastructure concerns that popped up around it. The main issue is that this is mostly a place to live if you’re happy with being self contained to this part of the region and surrounds, as forays into the city are both time-consuming and draining.

Plus, it’s going to get BUSY here. Rouse Hill might be in a bit of a sweet spot now, but the effects of all this new housing can already be seen and felt via increasingly crowded streets and parking, busy shopping centres, and an infrastructure that’s going to be challenged to keep up.

If you’re able to work within the Hills Shire and don’t need to visit the CBD on a regular basis, and have a family, Rouse Hill will be hard to pass up. Otherwise, it’s the commute that will be the killer – even Parramatta isn’t a walk in the park to commute to – and up to you if you’re willing to sacrifice a significant chunk of your time each week getting to and from your job. The ideal scenario for someone living here may just be for workers in Macquarie Park who can just hop on the Metro and ride straight in.

As a whole however, Rouse Hill mixes together the old and the new, the green and the grey quite well, and comes recommended for its sheer value proposition alone.