tokyo

The apartment listings on www.realestate.com.au show the available date. It seems like most postings on the site go up roughly one month before the available date. In general, how fast do the good apartments get rented out after they get listed? Are they gone within a week? What I'd like to know is if it is worth trying to chase up what look to be good apartments several weeks after they are listed, and say only have 1 week left before they are available.

Some other questions I have are:

- Are the available dates pretty firm, or are they just rough estimates of when the rental will be available? Have people been able to move in before the stated available date? I'm asking because my family won't be coming over until I can find a rental, and we're trying to figure out realistically how long that is going to be.

- After you submit your application for a rental, how long do you usually have to wait before you know whether or not it was accepted?

Specifically, I will be searching for an apartment in South East Melbourne next month, and I am wondering how competitive the market is. I would like to know what my chances are of finding a "good" 3-bedroom house, meaning not just any old place, within 1 month of arriving, and perhaps even more importantly, will I be able to actually move in to an apartment within a month? Is 1-month to find a good place overly optimistic? I keep stressing the word "good" because even just looking at the pictures on the Internet, I would automatically rule out 60-70% of the listings, so I suspect the competition for the good places is quite high.

Any and all information on the state of the rental market in Melbourne would be greatly appreciated.

touchingcloth

All great questions which I would have been asking in a month or so from now.

Tokyo, once Oz comes online in 5-6 hours or so, then u may get some answers

haggis supper

Tokyo,

We've been in Melbourne for almost a year and been renting for 10 months. Here's our thoughts...

Real Estate Agents are pretty useless over here, they need to be chased, and tend not to return calls. Once you agree on a particular area make friends with a few good agents and they are more likely to help you and may also tell you about and let you see properties before they get listed.

It is extremely unlikely that you will get any help whilst you are overseas.

Rental dates are obviously dependent on the individual circumstances. Some are date where the existing tenants are moving out, some where development work is due to be completed. At this time of year many places tend to be available for weeks and even months. You may be able to move in before the start date - just depends on the reason for the start date !

I don't believe the demand is particularly high at this time of the year, though as we get into September it does pick up. Good properties do move quickly though and many are taken before listing.

We submitted our application on a Monday and it was approved on the Tuesday morning. Not too sure how thorough the research is ! They made a few calls to my Oz employer and my references but that was all.

Be aware that there may be other applications going in, the agent may be able to let you know. We lost one place because we only applied for a year and another where the other applicant offered a little extra rent.

Will you find a "good" place in 1 month ? It's certainly possible but depends on your definition of good, where you want to live and how fussy you are ! We looked at 35 properties in 4 weeks and 80% were crap. We only really considered 3 places and finally took one that we had not previously wanted to.

1 month will be tough but if you get out every day, hound the agents and are prepared to compromise then you should be ok. Just.

We live in the Bayside area, south east Melbourne and are looking for a new place from September. Plenty around at the moment but nothing that ticks most/all of our boxes.

If I can help or if you need any more info please feel free to PM me.

Good luck !
Col

tokyo

Col,

Thanks for the response. A few more questions for you. You said you saw 35 places in 4 weeks and 80% were crap. Were all the crap listings you saw posted on www.realestate.com.au, and did they look okay on the Internet but turn out to be crap on inspection? Or were you looking at a fairly broad range of properties just to get a feel for the market? Did you ever get a chance to look at any properties before they were actually listed? Or is this something that only locals with a long relationship established with the agents get to do?

A lot of the rentals state a showing on a Saturday. These 35 places you saw, were you visiting mainly on weekends? Or did you spend a lot of weekdays searching, too? And if you spent time on weekdays, was it strictly 9-to-5? Or is it possible to view properties after work hours, too? I ask because I plan to work 3 of my first 4 weeks in Melbourne, and am starting to wonder if I am going to require more flexibility. If so, I will need to give my manager a heads up now.

During the last few months, I have noticed several townhouses on the Internet that look REALLY good from the pictures on the Internet, and several of them had availability dates of "Now", which indicates to me that they have been on the market for a while. I understand that some people don't like townhouses because of the lack of land, but as we are moving from Tokyo, anything is a huge step up, so perhaps we would be more open to such places. During your search (it sounds like you are searching again now), have you visited any such townhouses, and if so, is the turn off really just the small to non-existent garden?

Sorry for all the questions, but the more info I have now the better. Many thanks.

haggis supper

Tokyo,

I believe that most of the propoerties we looked at had been on either www.realestate.com.au or www.realestateview.com.au though there may have been a few that had not been listed. My wife was pretty tenacious and established a good relationship with 3 or 4 of the agents. That meant we did see several places before they were listed - essential if you want to see the good places.

Obviously they all looked ok on the net but agents over here have a real habit of overselling a place - just read some of the flowery descriptions on the web at the moment !

We had a new 5 bedroom house with large garden that overlooked fields in the UK. Therefore we wanted similar standards here. 4 and 5 bedroom places were exceptionally difficult to find so we ended up with a 3 bed place. I also wanted a large garden but in Bayside we found there were few places. Too many townhouses with almost zero garden. Strangely we now have a townhouse with it's own tennis court, but no garden at all. Over time we simply had to lower our expectations.

The places we rejected were too small, had no garden, were too far from the beach (we wanted to be within walking distance), were not modern (many properties looked fine on the web but were tired and in need of some TLC), or had odd lay outs that we did not like e.g. kids bedrooms on different floor and different part of the house.

We looked at properties at all times of the week. My wife usually saw places midweek and if she liked I looked at the weekends. Most were between 9-5 but a few were earlier or later in the evening - depends on the agent and any occupants in the house. My employers were terrific, they were happy for me to nip off during the day to view properties.

Some of the townhouses are excellent. What happens in the Bayside area is the old style single level properties are purchased, flattened and then the land is used to build executive townhouses. Built to a good standard and well fitted out. These are usually in demand but there are so many around at the moment. Downside is obviously the lack of garden and sometimes the quirky designs that are often very different to the UK layout of houses.

Hope that helps, feel free to ask again.

Cheers,
Colin

tokyo

Colin,

Thanks for the wealth of information! We are actually coming from the exact opposite position as yourself as we have been living in Tokyo in a rabbit hole for the past 8 years. I actually grew up in the U.S. in a huge house with a huge garden, so I know what that lifestyle is like, but as I am now used to much smaller accomodations, a townhouse might actually just suit us fine as a starter home, and then we can move up to a real house with a garden later when we have the luxury of looking leisurely for a place.

However, it is hard to tell from the pictures on the Internet if these townhouses have a shared wall or are completely free-standing units. My kids both play the violin and practice karate, and being kids, they are quite noisy, and we don't want to have to worry about bothering the neighbors, so if there is a shared wall that won't really work for us. However if they are free-standing units with small gardens that would suit us just fine. Can you comment any further on the townhouse situation? FYI, our range is 300-400/week, and we are looking to rent in either Bayside or Inner SE. Kids will be attending a bilingual school in Oakleigh South so that kind of serves as a starting point for our search, and my office is in St. Kilda.

Many thanks!

amendoza

Hi Tokyo,

Been reading this post and I think we're on the same boat.We'll be settling this September in the East also-our preference would be Glen Waverley, Vermont or Oakleigh South. My kids are into ice skating and the only rink available in Melbourne is in Oakleigh South.
Got a furnished short term rental for 2 weeks from www.stayz.com in Glen Grove for 585/week. Its a 3 BR house so its not bad at all considering we're a family of 5. I just hope that 2 weeks would be sufficient for us to look for a decent home.
I guess for a start, a townhouse would be manageable enough. I just hope we can find one fast as well.
Good luck with your new life in Melbourne...

Cheers,
Hannah

haggis supper

Tokyo,

I had a quick look on realestateview.com.au for townhouses in Hampton, Sandringham, Brighton, Black Rock, Beaumaris, Parkdale and Mentone for 300-400 per week. There seemed to be quite a few available. It very much depends on how many bedrooms you need and how close to the beach you are. Moving a little inland can save you quite a few bucks.

Not sure how they define townhouse here as some appear to be single story dwellings and some are semi detached ! Don't think you should have a problem
finding a place.

Keep the questions coming, happy to help !

Good lucck.
Col