Hi mickeyaus,

I can sympathise with you completely. To say it's a bit of a nightmare trying to secure a rental here is an understatement.

We recently arrived in Perth and have spent all our time trying to secure a rental. To cut a long story short, we managed to secure one last week. This wasn't through the estate agents but through a private rental advertised in the newspaper. We had been advised by others to try this route. Here, the days for rentals in the paper are Wednesday and Saturday. First day we tried we were too late for most of the decent one's that were advertised. The key is to get the paper as early as possible and phone around those that sound good. Get the address and check out google map. Worked for us. Only problem we have is that we can't move in until the end of Feb. But certainly now feel a weight has been lifted.

Best of luck!! I'm sure it will all work out in the end (that's what my husband kept saying and, for a change, he was right!!)

Jane

Hi Jane-
Which newspaper is it. The local council ones?

Hi,

Nope, it's wasn't local council ones but the Perth newspaper called 'The West Australian'. It's printed everyday apart from Sunday's. Rentals listed on a Wednesday and Saturday.

Were are you staying at the moment, I would ask them for a reference.

oh god we will be stressing regarding this when we land in april.

Started to get refs from all my financial dealings mortgage bnk etc. The fact I will be starting work asap after we land will that help us?

Might be worth looking into house-sitting, often it's needed because owners are going away and need their pets looking after. Might be more difficult for a family to find a place, though, but worth a shot.

I forgot all about that. There was one advertised recently in Baldivis for 3 months I think and another down Albany way for 2 years

We moved over in Jan and have had similar problems, but now we have got a good house at a very reasonable rent (by Sydney standards!!)

A couple of tips:

Yes, have a pack of info with you...verified copies of passports, anything with your temporary Oz address on (we had a letter from medicare, a bank statement and Tax File Number letter), a letter from Employer with details of job offer, and we had downloaded the application form and took the completed from with all info with us to the viewing to hand to agent.

One very frustrating thing is the general attitude of agents (some are ok). We saw numerous properties on the web and turned up for viewings only to find someone had already put in an application and paid their deposit! Before you set off, call the agent just to check it's still worth going! We wasted so much time!

Good Luck....you will find what you want..

Don't stress about it too much, it's almost an immigration rite of passage and everyone finds a place in the end. Another element of fore-planning is of course sorting out affordable temp accomodation. Whereabouts are you planning to settle?

I will be working at Hollywood hospital. I have sorted 3 weeks in shenton park via stayz website I keep looking during my few hours between work and sleeping on the rental websites lol.

we will be paying 120$ a night and I couldnt find cheaper no matter how I tried for the 4 of us and believe me I googled within an inch of my laptops life.

Well at least it stopped me looking at the bug stuff lol.

Ah WA

$120 sounds like a lot but it's roughly what we had to pay for our motel. We were lucky because it took us just over a week to secure a property. I still suspect a hidden hand in our success because it so suddenly all fell into place. We were intending to camp but on the 11th hour (2 hours before we departed for Canberra) we were wisely advised not to because of forecast storms and heavy rain so I quickly booked us into a motel for the first week. So glad we did. It would have been impossible to effectively function in a tent in the rain. The kids were a bit hard going to entertain while we shifted into "find a house" gear. I bought a printer/scanner/photocopier which helped tremendously (they're fairly cheap here) and researched and planned by night and viewed by day - squeezing in the odd opportunuty to entertain the kids. The forms: Every agent has a different form. I found it helped to fill out the generic parts of each form only, scan it, save it as a template and print and then fill the house-specific information. Saved a lot of time. Also, scanning all the docs into a single pdf helped with my reference temple. Try Bullzip. Make sure you have a diary/planner - a page a day is best. The diary planner has BTW proven to be so valuable throughout our migration "journey". Possibly a good time to buy one cheaply will be now. OH picked one up for £1. Work out a system for cross referencing your information. Personally I found it best to deal with most of the house hunting/application work and leave my OH to entertain the kids, feed and maintain us. It worked for us. Depends who is best at what though. It's stressful so needs to be planned. And with increased stress levels resist the temptation to argue with your partner. Take a deep breath and remind yourselves that you're both on the same side!

At the end of our first week (well on the Saturday after all the open house viewings) we returned to Sydney (and the in-laws) and were planning to camp for the following week. The kids opted to remain with their cousins in Sydney. It was a mad weekend filling out around ten applcations and first thing on the Monday we headed back to Canberra with completed forms (boy that was hard work because each adult has to submit a form for each house so it was in fact twenty forms) and our camping stuff. The first EA we stopped off at soon after arriving said fine, go and have a cup of coffee and come back in around 20 mins, we'll get the contract drawn up for you!! Such a huge weight had been lifted from our shoulders I felt like hugging her

We then spent the next few days camping in Canberra while we sorted out tax file numbers, medicare, drivers licences, etc. We got really chowed up by the mozzies but we didn't care

In addition try offering to pay 3 or 6 months rent in advance which worked for us to get our first rental. We also upped the budget a bit and found less people turning up for views so try to work out what the most popular bracket is and see if you can afford a bit more.

Good advice, we had an info pack containing all the usual plus references from the EA which sold our UK house and a rental company that I used for accom when I was working away and it definitely helped.

We are moving to a new rental this weekend (to be closer to work), we prepared the same pack and this time included a bank statement showing all the pay going in/rents going out on time for the last 7 months for our current place, plus a quick overview of who we are, where we work etc. We were accepted for every property we applied for (another hint, apply for everything you like, on the spot - get forms before you attend the viewing & hand them over completed then & there). In the end we had 3 options all available at the same time and actually negotiated a reduction on the advertised rent on two of them and haggled down a bit further on the one we wanted!

We offered to pay 6 months up front as well but it wasn't taken up Probably served as a good reference for us tho

Wow, you even haggled down the rent! You did do well