What would you consider the best option?

A.Pay a relocation agent somewhere in the region of $650 to find a long term rental and secure it for you whilst you're still in the uk.

B.Go into a short term rental at approx $350 per week and search out a property to rent yourself.

Been humming and harring about this for awhile now, both have plus and minuses, the agent option would be easiest but you can never get a real feel for a place and area just from pictures and i'd have to sign up for at least 6 months in that property.
Going into the short term rental i'd save the money on the agents fees, get to personally view the areas but would have to battle the 1000s in a tought rental market.

Really i'm just interested in seeing what the majority votes for and any opinions/experiences from people that have done either or are thinking of.

any more votes

do you need to go into short term rental? can you maybe stay in a caravan or something for a week or so until you get sorted (depending on where you're going of course and the situation with availability of rentals)?

Get a holiday let for a couple of weeks - choose your own long term rental - 6 months is a long time if you don't like the property/area.

Go into a short term rental: holiday let, motel, caravan park.

Don't know where you are moving to. We're in Perth and were told before we came there was a rental crisis and couple of hundred people for each place. But that wasn't our experience. We looked at half a dozen rentals (because we're picky). No "queue" of other people anywhere; we could have rented any of the houses we looked at.

Paying someone to find you a rental is a waste of money and doesn't guarantee that you'll like the place they pick for you.

Gina

The stories of 100s turning up for viewings etc was one of the main reasons i was going to use an agent, i'm looking at the brissy/sunshine/gold coast area and have found some short term accomodation for $350 per week.
thinking about it, if i stay in that for even 4 weeks it wouldn't be to bad taking into account the $600 i'm saving on agent fees divided by 4 and taken away from the holiday let price would be the same as paying $200 a week for the short term let!

did that make sense lol

Seems like there's an agent for everything these days... I might set up an agency that helps you find all the best agents although im sure there's already one!

Depends on many things. For example, if you have a job to start, then can you make more than $650 in the time it would take you to do all the rental searching yourself? If so, it's a simple calculation.

Or: do you need a long-term address in the enrolment area of a school that you want your children to get into? If so, a short-term rental may not work for you.

Doing it yourself is fine, if your time is free. Or rather, if you have the free time

Cheers
b

$650 seems expensive ,the guys we used line viewings up ready for your arrival and have their own furnished accomodation available to you use, they give a few different services too. www.brisbane-relocations.com .I know people sometimes say save your money but for us it was peace of mind when you know no-one in a strange country things can be tough at first.The rental market does seem to be under pressure but there are houses out there.hope you find an answer to your dilema.