Hey there, we own a house on the central coast. It is lovely. For sydney it is considered quite suburban. There are lots of houses. You will see lots of flats in gosford but gosford is... well its okay but terrigal is considered a much better area for the standard of living. Terrigal is lots of icecream shops, pizza, trendy cafes and restaraunts, kids running around the beach, young teenagers going to discos and older people driving up from sydney for the weekend to stay in the crowne plaza. Outside of terrigal there is a huge strip mall called erina fair, i think about 5 kms away? You will find larger apartments with big balconies in terrigal. But basically you could get a house with a pool depending how much you have to spend. Houses are really the thing on the central coast. Food can be cheap, lots of good fruit and veg shops.