02737640

I plan on moving to Sydney from the uk April 2013. I have been looking at apartments. The rent seems quite expensive. If I rented an apartment what other bills would I have to pay? Is the gas and electricity included in the rent price? Is there any council tax charge or any other charges?

Info would be great

Penny45

When we rented our place out, the tenant paid gas/electric/water (think all water in this country is metered). We paid council rates.

Bermudashorts

Utilities will not typically be included, landlord usualy pays council tax. Yes it is an expensive city.

Beoz

Are you trying to do a budget? Do you know what your salary will be? Yes Sydney is expensive for rent compared to say London but salaries in general are higher. I can't remember the figure but despite the higher rental in terms of straight exchange rate I pay less of a proportion of my take home salary toward rent in Sydney than I did in London.

02737640

Thanks for replys. I am looking for a furnished apartment to rent long term. I was on a website that told me furnished apartments usually covers electricity costs. It would be great if this was true as rent is very expensive.

JoeBloggs80

Furnished apartments aren't especially common in Sydney, the majority are unfurnished. Are you looking at serviced apartments? These would be furnished, but also very expensive (although would include all bills)

Bermudashorts

Are you coming for a very short period of time? That is only reason I can think of why someone would rent a furnished apartment, you are severely limiting your options by doing that.

02737640

We are going to be staying permenantly. A furnished apartment to rent that has everything including kitchen utensils, cutlery etc is what were looking for. I don't mind if it's more expensive if it includes gas and electricity and is fully furnished. We're not in a position to rent unfurnished as we can't afford to fully furnish it. I have looked on domain.com.au but doesn't say if gas and electricity is included

Tramps_mate

If it doesnt say it, I wouldnt presume.

I started with nothing. First thing, bed, then cooking stuff, then build from there.

IMO its much cheaper than renting fully furnished. Plus it wont take long to buy things where as you may get tied into a lease for fully furnished for 12 months..

But I dont mind roughing it.

spottydog

I would think that fully furnished rentals on domain would not include gas/electric etc.

If you want to include these you'll need to go for serviced apartments which also include things like linen and cleaning but this will cost more again (mainly designed for employees who have been sent away from home for 2 weeks to a few months).

For furnishings you could look for secondhand items on gumtree, freecycle etc. which will probably save you money over renting furnished in just a couple of months.

elice_in_oz

Indeed, the only time we rented a furnished unit in Melbourne (on a normal one-year lease, not a short-term serviced appartment), we had to pay for electricity and gas. Water was included in the rent as it wasn't metered separately for each unit in the block. I would assume the same goes in Sydney.

Tramps_mate

I would have thought fully furnished would cost a good 5-600 a week atleast in Sydney (alot more if truthful) and your partners salary of $50,000 is only 790 a week or 738 a week minus Super..

02737640

A serviced apartment would be great as I'm looking for everything to be in the apartment - bed linen, kitchen utensils etc. Can serviced apartments be rented for a year minimum? Just to get us settled and then we can look at moving into a unfurnished.

Tramps - I would be working aswell not just my partner

02737640

When we go over a hotel room is included with my partners job just for a few weeks until we find somewhere to stay. Don't think the hotel would accept our cat though.

I've a feeling that we're going to be doing things wrong going by all your posts. I need somewhere that is pet friendly as I have a indoor cat. Should i forget about a serviced apartment and look for something cheaper? It needs to be fully furnished.

Tramps_mate

Why does it need to be fully furnished? Can you not buy a few things to begin with and build stuff up?