Oz wannabe1

How difficult is it to get a rental if you are not in the country yet. Has anyone got any advice please.

eddie007

VERY

Rentals here tend to have an open home and application form attached to them... I wouldnt rent ANYTHING wihout seeing it first... We saw fabulous houses on the tinternet that were total DUMPS in real life... And estate agents wont take you seriously unless they can see you and your cash infront of their noses, even then expect to be treated with some contempt lol...

Short term holiday rental out of season is what we did when we firat arrived 3weeks during which we found a long term rental...

hoofie2002

Unless its only for a couple of weeks - no,no and again, no. If you are not there to see it don't do it - seriously; you will end up in a slum somewhere.

Kim67

Allow for a couple of months in a serviced apartment or motel if you want to rent in a nice area. Last time we were there in 2008, we stayed with friends for ten weeks. We had lined up a rental before we arrived but it fell through (through my husband's brother-in-law and his family, they'd not been totally honest with us and didn't we didn't want some family drama so we just left. Buggers wouldn't even let us stay there overnight - it was about 7pm and we had three kids and our dog). Fortunately we have good mates, probably more reliable than family. Anyway, trying to get a rental in South Perth/Como area was ridiculous. As eddie says, it's on an open house type arrangement with an application. At that stage (don't know if it's still the same), you had to provide a weeks rent with the application and if your application was successful, the rent was taken off your first week's rental on the property, but if you were the successful applicant and had taken another property in the meantime, your money wasn't returned. Absolutely disgraceful - anyway we saw a great house that wasn't available for eight weeks, so we applied for it and got it because others were desperate to get straight into a property.

Good luck, hopefully things are a little less frantic in the rental market there these days.

Oz wannabe1

Thanks for the advice. We have friends in Hammond Park so maybe they could view for us? We are still a bit off that worry as still waiting for the spouse visa to go through Well whats a couple of months when I have been trying for the past two and a half years to get there since validating my visa
Hope the social life is good in Perth lol