WacandJill

Just a bit of advice on everyones past experience.
What do people normally do when they get to Australia.
We are still awaiting our visa, but having thought about it alot and read this site, we need your help.
From what I can gather we can go on real estate web sites and look at houses to rent, but of course they all look nice in the pictures but we dont know any of the areas.
What I am trying to say is - we book our flights, get over there, perhaps book in a hotel for a few nights, have a look at the area we want to live, and ideally get a 6 months rental before we find a property to buy.
How easy is it to get a property to rent that will be vacant.
A week in a hotel is going to be expensive, and not really enough time to see if you will like an area.
A months short term rental would be ideal, whilst we look for something more permanent. But what are the chances of finding this, and it being vacant, within a short time of landing.
Is it advisable to get somewhere to live, short term, before we arrive in Australia?
I hope you understand what I am trying to say, getting myself tongue tied.
In an ideal situation, I would like to get off the plane, go straight to a previously arranged short term rental place that is lovely (as I would probably be emotional about leaving family etc., so dont want to stay somewhere horrible), stay there for a month and have a look around. Find an affordable and nice place to rent for six months, then in this time find our dream home to buy. - It would be a miracle if this could happen.

I have visions of getting off the plane, spending hours trying to find a bed for the night, having to stay in a hotel for weeks on end because cant find a short term rental. Worst than that having to opt for the first rental house that is available, and being tied up for a 6 months lease, and hating the house and area.

We think we are going to the Perth area- outside the city.

What did you lot do ?
cheers

sophia

hi there
don't stress too much yet, there are plenty of people on this site (whose names escape me at the moment..sorry guys!!) who have short term fully furnished rentals available. I know this one www.movetoperth.com is run by someone on this site, they should be able to help you!

love sophia xx

Lindsay Clan

We moved to VIC but stayed in a serviced appt for 2.5 weeks whilst we looked for a long term rental. It's all luck of the draw how quickly you find something, a) you like, b) you can afford, c) that's in good condition and d) thats in the area you want. If you can find a serviced appt that is flexible on how long you stay you can then lengthen the time you spend there if it takes longer to find a rental.

Lorraine

WacandJill

Did you arrange your rental before you landed, or found it when you got there?

phoenixinoz

Hi WacandJill

We landed in Aus [having never been before] and I'd pre-booked a Motel for a week and a hire car also for a week so that we could get over the jet lag and start looking for areas to live. We went straight by Taxi to the Motel on the night we landed as we were too tired to concentrate on driving.

The following morning we got up, went for a cooked breakfast, bought a new sim card for our mobile [so at least we had a form of communication] and then hubby went to airport to pick hire car up.

The best thing to do would be to look around the areas you'd like to live, drive around and pop into the real estate offices in those areas. Ask them for leaflets of houses within your price range / your chosen area and they will probably give you details there and then of which houses are available to rent, and when they are having an open house.

Be aware of school holidays or any public holidays as these may have an impact in terms of availability. Also if you are bringing in a pet you need to make them aware as some rentals do not allow pets, others allow outdoor pets etc.

The thing to remember with short term rentals is the cost. If you want short term fully furnished accomodation it will cost you more. We decided we wanted to rent for at least 6 months until we'd made our mind up where we wanted to settle and we wanted to spend as least money as poss [hence Motel [vs hotel] when we arrived]. We rented a 3 bed unfurnished house with pool for $250 a week. We bought cheap pots/pans/cutlery etc from KMart to put us on til our stuff arrived from UK. We also bought second hand furniture and sold it back to the store when our stuff arrived. This was still cheaper than furnished accomodation.

Our rental was a bit old fashioned, but clean and gave us a base from which we could look for something more permenent. Had we wanted a short term furnished house, it would have cost us $500+ per week without pool [Vs $250 with pool] so we bought all we needed with what we'd have paid in 2 weeks fully furnished rental.

For us, we decided to do things as cost effective as possible as we had to educate ourselves that this was not a holiday and every penny was potential equity towards a new bought house. For others they want to live in a new rental and don't mind spending the extra.

We then took our time and obtained school, driving licience,TFN, Medicare card etc, etc during the next 6 months [we also had visitors for 3 full months!] and then we bought our own place.

Don't worry. Biggest advice would be to pre-book yourselves somewhere to sleep and a car for at least a week so at least you are not unduly stressed in your first week of landing. This gives you a week to find somewhere to live and find a car [we extended our Motel stay day-by-day to eventually 10 days after which we went into rental propery].

Hope this helps?

Good luck

WacandJill

Thanks for that, its all a bit clearer now.
I would rather do what you did I think. Six months cheaper rental than short term furnished. Six months would go really quickly I expect, with settling in new job, finding you way around, and sorting everything out.
Motel sounds a good option as well, after all, its only to catch up on your sleep, and find your way around.
Thanks for taking the trouble of replying.
Hopefully, if we ever get there, we will find a rental as quickly as you did, otherwise have to stay in a motel for ages.
Cheers

phoenixinoz

No problem. Happy to help. I remember all this. Nightmare innit

Six months goes unbelieveably quickly.

Six months rental means releived pressure and you can take your time settling in, finding somewhere longer term. Unfurnished also meant we could put our own stuff in so saved on storage [we stored some in the shed too].

Not sure if it's the same where you are going but certainly there are usually places to be found. At least if you book yourself into a motel it gives you time to look

Have you joined a local Expat site to where you're going? Often people on local sites are prepared to help with specific info and it's more pertinent within the area you are going. Just an idea. Try this site as it covers all over Aus so chances are there will be an Expat forum in your area:

http://s3.invisionfree.com/ABCDiamon...p?showforum=29

Good luck.....chill........and get yersen a drink or two

WacandJill

Thanks for that.
Havent even got visa yet and seem to want everything organised now.
Perhaps will open a bottle of wine or two with my Sunday lunch, and try to chill.

phoenixinoz

That's normal. Shows you're well organised

Good luck with the visa.

Enjoy the wine!

Emzee

Hi, we moved to Rockingham in April this year, it took us 4 weeks to find a rental, we stayed in a B+B during that time, which was rather expensive . It really depends on your budget as to how quickly you will find somewhere. Our budget was $200 per week, at that price there were plenty of rentals available but none that we liked, we eventually got a brand new 3 by 2 for $210 per week. Had we been prepared to go over $200 initially we would have found somewhere sooner. Every real estate has what they call a "rental list", they are usually found on the counter, you just go in and help yourself to one and that lists all the current rentals for that day or week . Sometimes they give the whole address, but you can just ask the staff for for it if not, and then they will advise you to do a drive by and if you like what you see from the outside you can then arrange a viewing inside. If you look south of the river you will be able to find a nice 3 or 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom for $210-$250 per week, even with a swimming pool if you are lucky

WacandJill

Did you book the B & B before you left the UK, or just drove around and found it once you had landed?
Rockingham - this is where we have been recommended to go by employers, they also suggested Freemantle.
My other half has met a workmate recently who lives in Rockingham and he is pleased with it, and suggested we try there.
Dont want to waste too much money on rent as we eventually intend to buy (well we think we will).
There is only the two of us, no children and no pets.

robert cowan

why perth ?

WacandJill

Hi Rob.
Paul is going on a 457 sponsored visa, and the company involved have offered him Perth area or NSW. Dont know the exact area/place as yet, perhaps we will get more definate information when we hopefully get the visa.
Paul is a fabricator/plater/welder, over in Aus I think they call them Boildermakers, so need to go in the area where there is the most work, and shortage of skilled tradesmen. We are aged 45 and 46 so the 457 is the only visa available to us.
NSW is too big an area and dont know anything about it to look at web sites to find out. Perhaps if they had given us a name it would have been better. The company told us to look up Freemantle as a place to live.

Perthforme

this is the official guide to what to do http://www.immi.gov.au/settle/booklets/texts/wa/eng.pdf

WacandJill

Thanks for that link.
It took some reading, 47 pages, but I found it very useful.
Cheers