Looking for somewhere to live in Melbourne was obviously the biggest task to tick off our list. Luckily Brad came straight into a job so we thankfully didn't have to worry about that. This is a long winded post but should give anyone in this situation all the info they need. We would have loved to have all these details in one place when we arrived.
Knowing where Brad's office is made it easier to narrow down the areas we wanted to look at. When we visited Melbourne in November 2012 we rented a car and spent a good few hours driving around various neighbourhoods. Obviously you have to do your research as you can't tell just from driving through an area. One of the things we checked was where the South African shops are. It sounds silly but it would mean that like minded people had picked that area and although we didn't end up near one, it gave us a starting point. That and the fact that we did loads of town profile research online and of course spoke to locals about various areas.
Once you know what areas you're looking at, the next step is to hit the real estate websites. The two we used the most were Domain and Real Estate. Most of the estate agents advertise on these two but you'll find many of them have their own sites as well. It's best to look in the morning and new properties will have red Just Added banners across them. You'll see loads of places that have been listed for over a month, there's usually a reason for that.
When trawling these websites you will notice that most of them will advertise Inspection dates and times. This is something we'd never experienced before. Basically, the agent will unlock the house for 15 minutes only on the said Inspection date and everyone interested will rock up at the same time to check out the property. I say that the agent will unlock the house because that is ALL they do. They are not there to give you a guided tour or to answer any questions you have; they know as much about the property as you do. We've learnt that rental agents don't get commission on properties they let so they don't go to too much trouble for you.
If you decide you'd like to apply for the house then you need to fill in the very detailed application form and provide plenty of evidence that you are who you say you are and that you can afford the rent etc. If the property is great then there are likely to be many people applying. This is why you need to try and gauge the situation during the Inspection. If there are loads of people looking then it means you will have a lot of competition and offering a slightly higher rent might work in your favour. Usually the good properties have Inspection times during the week so less people can visit. Difficult or occupied properties will usually be shown on the weekends.
On the application form you will notice that you are signing your life away... you are agreeing to pay the bond within 48 hours of being accepted. This means that you shouldn't be applying for more than one property at a time which of course makes house hunting even more difficult. I'm sure there's ways around this and there's not much they could do if you refuse to take a property if you're accepted. In Perth they avoid this by making you pay a weeks bond just to apply!
The application form and paperwork needed is quite detailed. I've put the list below of what we had to provide. Each piece of information you provide has a points value. An application will not be looked at unless at least 100 points are reached. However, if you don't provide bank statements or references then you have less of a chance than your opposition that does.
So the list below is the guideline from one of the agencies but they're all pretty much the same. I figured that the more you provide, the better so I sent in every single thing!
- Passport and Visa - 40 points
- Last four rent receipts - 30 points
- Photo ID - 20 points
- Drivers Licence - 20 points
- Medicare Card - 20 points (see more info here)
- Copy of Birth Certificate - 20 points
- Copy of a current phone/gas/water/other utility bills - 20 points
- Current bank statements/payslips - 20 points
- Written reference from previous landlord - 20 points
Obviously an agent would like to see that both of you are working however they're fine if one of you has a salary that is plenty to cover the rent. In our case, Brad's salary is enough but I also provided my last three pay slips from London to show what kind of salary I will bring in when I do work. We didn't advertise the fact that I was pregnant (big scarf)!
Something you will have to provide is two character references. We used Brad's boss and a housemate/friend of mine from London. We also put down the owner of our current temporary accommodation. All three of these references were called so they are definitely thorough!
Other advice we had was to take all paperwork with us and then fill in the application form during the Inspection. Apparently some agents work on a first come, first served basis where they will do checks on the first good looking application they receive.
And then you wait... the agent should call you either way but it takes a couple of days to find out if you've been accepted or not.
Another place to look for property is Gumtree where people will be trying to get out of their lease. You need to really look every day for these and the good properties seem few and far between. There seemed to be mainly house and room shares advertised on this site.
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