Tips for renting in Melbourne

cooper90

Hi folks just wondering if any one has any tips for renting in Melbourne. I'm here on a 3 year visa and am looking for some where to live with one of my mates who moved over with me. We are having reall trouble finding a place as we have no ozzi references, mine being Irish and his being American. Also we also only have one ref each for previous rentals. Are you better off to just bullsh#t them and make a few up or how dose it work. I have work contract passport pay slips and all the rest but we are not getting offered any thing and I'm getting a little fed up of couch surfing. any help would be appreciated.

tba

hmmm, what way are you looking? Domain.com.au is good. My GF and I got offered all the stuff we applied for straight away so there is no way they checked the refs unless they rang my previous landlord at three in the morning.
A job reference would be a great way to get a place

cooper90

have been useing that and realestate.com.au theres also the trouble of going to viewings and there been 30 to 40 people also viewing the place so being a 26 year old bloke all ready puts ya at a disadvantage. Also all the feckin viewings are at the same time! its mad system but i guess it works for them.

davepatr07

Has anyone here got shared accommodation there? I heard that was the really only decent place. Didn't know there were other sites.
Would a NZ landlord reference be ok you think?

cooper90

im hopeing to avoid shareing if i can as if had my fill of it and want my own place! the main site are domain.com.au and realestae.com.au as far as i can see. i think its also just the busy seasion!

Zambia

Realestate.com.au is the best one all right

Try gumtree as well.

Whereabouts do you need to get to daily work/college wise?

Cooperspale

Walk in to a realtor of the burb you want to live in & ask for their rental lists. Honestly it works out being much quicker than trawling the net.
Biggin Scott, Hocking Stuart, Nelson Alexander are some of the agents

Tigerandahalf

Gumtree is good if you want to get a cheap house share. The other sites are dedicated to property and may be more upmarket.

Luminant

I think that part of your bad luck has been the fact that you are seeing dozens of other people at opens. Certain parts of the market a really competitive and it is quite normal for applicants to turn up to the viewing with all their paperwork ready to hand across to the agent. Like many people, a lot of the agents are lazy and when faced with an easy allocation of someone with loads of paperwork already there to support their application and maybe having to work a bit harder for yours, unfortunately a lot of them put you in the "too hard basket".

I had a problem with them before my Aussie phone got activated that they wouldn't ring me as it was an Irish mobile number so I had to keep chasing them. I think that with vacancy rates about 1% they aren't having to try very hard to lease decent places and are complacent.

A tip to try and get to the head of the queue might be to visit - as mentioned above - the agents in the area you are looking and make friends with the receptionist. Most of them are the kingmakers in rentals. If you get to know them, you can find out what day they usually finalise their lists and get ahead of the game. Also, set up an alert on realestate.com.au as you will get an email every day with new listings.

As a last resort, ask around in work if anyone is a landlord with one of the agents as when we got a recommendation from someone who was a client of the agent, they all of a sudden wanted to help that bit more.

Good luck!

tibor_imo

If you're a very "close" friend, I'm moving out of here next week. http://www.realestate.com.au/property-apartment-vic-st+kilda-404969574

We had 0 refernces when we moved in.

Zambia

Not bad for st Kilda

The_B_Man

ah man, I'd love to be back there! This is 2 threads now about house hunting in melbourne! Memories!

gonedrinking

Why does almost every apartment in melbourne come unfurnished, really fcuking annoying. And then they ask for a month and a half deposit! Is there anywhere you can rent out sh1t like a bed,tv,tables for a year?

Zambia

The above one has a furnished option for an extra 30 dollars a week.

gonedrinking

yeah but I'm not really interested in st kilda, couldn't be bothered with the 30 min tram ride into the cbd

Ozeire

gonedrinking wrote: »

Why does almost every apartment in melbourne come unfurnished, really fcuking annoying. And then they ask for a month and a half deposit! Is there anywhere you can rent out sh1t like a bed,tv,tables for a year?

That's the way they rent places in Oz unfurnished . You just buy enough to get you started and build it up.

Alot of the secondhand places will buy back off you but at a much lower rate .

Ozeire

cooper90 wrote: »

Hi folks just wondering if any one has any tips for renting in Melbourne. I'm here on a 3 year visa and am looking for some where to live with one of my mates who moved over with me. We are having reall trouble finding a place as we have no ozzi references, mine being Irish and his being American. Also we also only have one ref each for previous rentals. Are you better off to just bullsh#t them and make a few up or how dose it work. I have work contract passport pay slips and all the rest but we are not getting offered any thing and I'm getting a little fed up of couch surfing. any help would be appreciated.

The main thing is that you need to prove to the person renting is that your there for while and not just a few weeks . Casue there is nothing worse than renting a place and then having to go through the whole thing again a few weeks later casue the person is moving on .

Someone with a full time job in the area will always trump a person who is in part time work .

The way we worked it was we had a friend who was in full time work and in Sydney a while and they rented the place. We then moved in with them .

If you're lucky enough to be in work now . Push that when looking round the place . Like i'm working in bla bla and really looking for a place in this area . I've seen a few places around . Make it look like you don't need the place that you have loads of places to choose from .

No don't make up refrences as unlike in Ireland Aussies do check references.

JUst really push that your reliable and a good person to rent to .

tibor_imo

lol @ a 30 min tram to the city from St Kilda.

gonedrinking

tibor_imo wrote: »

lol @ a 30 min tram to the city from St Kilda.

whats so funny about it?

kavsmdf

It actually is about 30mins to the city from st. Kilda tbh!

It took us over a month of searching when we got here. But it was just a learning thing, when we copped on to what they were looking for, we got offered 7 places in 3 days, they were chasing us for a change!

What they really want is for you to have a job, and an income that will support the rent of the place, along with enough money for a hefty deposit. Almost everywhere will be at least a months rent.

I'm on st. Kilda road at the moment, about half way between CBD and St. Kilda, which is perfect.

Just keep searching, and don't be too picky.

P.S. We found it very easy to find furnished apartments!

tibor_imo

No way it takes 30 mins, 20 max. Less usually, suppose it depends on where in St Kilda though.

tba

96 runs pretty sharpish into the CBD

SlamDunk

kavsmdf wrote: »

It actually is about 30mins to the city from st. Kilda tbh!

It took us over a month of searching when we got here. But it was just a learning thing, when we copped on to what they were looking for, we got offered 7 places in 3 days, they were chasing us for a change!

What they really want is for you to have a job, and an income that will support the rent of the place, along with enough money for a hefty deposit. Almost everywhere will be at least a months rent.

I'm on st. Kilda road at the moment, about half way between CBD and St. Kilda, which is perfect.

Just keep searching, and don't be too picky.

P.S. We found it very easy to find furnished apartments!

Where did you find your apartment? Did you go online? that's class you were offered tonnes of places.

cooper90

Got a place 2 bed palce in richmond which is sweet and about 10 mins to work so im happy as larry! now i just need to trawl teh salvos and find some funiture as teh place has nothing! not even a fridge! ill be liveing camping style for a while! thanks for all the tips folks!

Luminant

cooper90 wrote: »

Got a place 2 bed palce in richmond which is sweet and about 10 mins to work so im happy as larry! now i just need to trawl teh salvos and find some funiture as teh place has nothing! not even a fridge! ill be liveing camping style for a while! thanks for all the tips folks!

Try Vinnies and Brotherhood of St Laurence as well, I know that a lot of the Vinnies will deliver bulky items for you which might help.....also, justasecond down the Nepean and Swan Street area of Richmond have good cheap stuff too. There is a place in Richmond called Suite Deals I think that does the stuff from builders display homes. Some is shocking but some of it good for the price.

cooper90

Luminant wrote: »

Try Vinnies and Brotherhood of St Laurence as well, I know that a lot of the Vinnies will deliver bulky items for you which might help.....also, justasecond down the Nepean and Swan Street area of Richmond have good cheap stuff too. There is a place in Richmond called Suite Deals I think that does the stuff from builders display homes. Some is shocking but some of it good for the price.

cheers thanks for that, so far we have one bed and two lazy boy chairs and a TV so sorted! no i just need a ps3 and a 65 inch plasma!

tba

http://www.mrrental.com.au/

an option that you might think about.