By Brendan Leahy, Naked Real Estate®
I sell property up here for a living, so I am hardly neutral. I also live here. We have been in the same house in the Hills for more than two decades, and we raised our kids here.
So take the sales pitch out of it and here is what people actually ask me when they are thinking about moving up from Kelmscott, Seville Grove or further down the flat into Bedfordale or Roleystone.
Four questions, every time.
What about bushfire?
This is the first one, always, and it deserves a straight answer rather than reassurance.
The risk is real. Most of the Hills is designated bushfire prone land, and that designation exists for a reason. You do not get the trees, the bush, the birds and the outlook without also getting the fire risk. They are the same thing.
What has changed is how it is managed.
Land in a bushfire prone area now carries planning and building requirements that did not exist when a lot of the older homes up here were built. New development has to address bushfire risk under State Planning Policy 3.7 and the Planning for Bushfire Guidelines, and a bushfire management plan is a key part of whether a subdivision or a development gets approved at all.
In the newer Bedfordale estates that shows up in ways you can see. The bushfire management plans for those estates provide for eight metre firebreaks and fire hydrants every 500 metres.
Planned burning around residential areas is also far more frequent than it was when we moved up. If you see smoke over the valley on a still autumn day, that is usually a planned burn reducing the fuel load, not an emergency.
And both Bedfordale and Roleystone have very good volunteer bushfire brigades. If you move up here I would encourage you to get involved with yours. The community spirit around them is one of the better things about living in the Hills, and you will learn more in a season with them than from anything you read.
Check the block, not the suburb
This is the practical bit most people miss.
You can check whether a specific property is in a designated bushfire prone area, rather than guessing from the suburb. DFES publishes the statewide Map of Bush Fire Prone Areas, and Landgate’s Property Interest Report will tell you about an individual address.
The current version of the map took effect on 13 December 2025.
DFES’s own advice on preparing is on their site, and their framing is worth repeating because it is not soft: to survive a bushfire, you must be prepared to make your own decisions.
Preparation up here is not optional. It is the price of the view. Your local government issues a firebreak notice each year and you are expected to comply with it. You will spend time on it every spring.
If that sounds like too much, that is useful to know before you buy rather than after.
What about schools?
More choice than people expect.
There are school buses running morning and afternoon down to Kelmscott and Armadale, and across to Lumen Christi College in Martin. Routes and stops change, so check with the school rather than taking my word for it.
In Bedfordale there is Southern Hills Christian College, an independent school on Admiral Road running pre-primary to Year 12.
Roleystone Community College is a public school running kindergarten to Year 10, which describes itself as the largest district high school in the state. For senior secondary there are the Kelmscott and Armadale options plus Lumen Christi, all within a reasonable run.
Are you a long way from the shops?
Less than people imagine. Depending where you are, you are five to ten minutes from either Armadale or Kelmscott.
Roleystone also has its own shopping village, which has a proper country feel to it. There is a good IGA, a chemist, specialty shops and takeaway.
You will do a bigger weekly shop and fewer top-up runs. That is the honest difference.
But the kids cannot just walk to their mates’ place
This is the one parents worry about most, and I understand why. It is also the one I feel most strongly about.
No, your kids cannot walk down the street to the shops whenever they want. And in my experience that has been a good thing, not a bad one.
They have to find ways to amuse themselves, and there is plenty up here to do it with.
Waiting until someone can run you down the road is not the worst lesson a teenager ever learned.
What you see up here that you see very little of anywhere else these days is kids out on their bikes. On the tracks, on the roads, without an adult hovering. They know the other kids in the street. They go out and come back.
There is bush and state forest on your doorstep, and enough wildlife that an afternoon walk is genuinely worth doing.
And both Bedfordale and Roleystone have community centres with skate parks, basketball courts, tennis courts and ovals.
It is not a compromise for kids. It is a different childhood, and after more than two decades of watching it up close, I would choose it again.
What you actually give up
I would rather say this than have you find out later.
You will drive more. Everything is a car trip, and once your kids hit sixteen you become a taxi service for a couple of years.
You have real maintenance. Firebreaks every year, gutters, trees, and a block that does not look after itself.
And you will get the odd week in summer where you watch the weather and the warnings more closely than you would on the flat.
That is the trade. Most people who make it do not want to go back, but it should be a decision, not a surprise.
Thinking about moving up, or selling to do it?
I sell in Bedfordale, Roleystone, Kelmscott, Mount Nasura, Mount Richon and Seville Grove, and I live up here.
If you are selling on the flat to buy in the Hills, I will tell you what I think your place is worth, and I will tell you straight what you are getting into up here, including the parts people do not enjoy.
Book a free Perth Hills and Foothills property appraisal
Truth. Strategy. Sold.
This article is general information. Check bushfire requirements for a specific property with your local government and the relevant planning and building
authorities.
About the author: Brendan Leahy has been selling homes throughout the Perth Hills and Foothills since 2002, with more than 1,500 personal sales.