Mrs_skinner

Hi, We make the big move in mid August and have arrange a temporary rental for 1 month until we find something longer term.

Are we giving ourselves enough time to find somewhere within this month, including references etc? Our aim is to find something within the first week or so of arrival. I just wondered what other people's experiences were with renting and how long things took before keys were handed over etc.

Thanks for reading

Phoodilicious

Advance welcome to Brisbane Mrs Skinner!

We moved to Brisbane in November 2014 and had booked a temporary apartment for 3 months to allow time for our goods shipment to arrive (sea) and for us to get a feel for the areas we might want to live in.

We found the house hunting process depressing as the places advertised were in almost all cases misleading. The photographers deserved awards for their creativeness in making a small room seem like a palace and often the photos were very old and in a couple of cases the room layouts had actually changed!

We ended up moving 2 months into being in Brisbane as we found a place that was acceptable and desperation made us take it (we were disheartened and also fed up of the one-bed apartment we had as temporary). Our shipment was still a couple weeks away from clearing customs so we bought some cheap airbeds and kitchen equipment and slept on the floor in the new house.

The actual process of trying to rent somewhere was not too painful other than the houses which were nice were snapped up very quickly and people were offering over the asking price much to our surprise. They often had their applications already partly completed and ready to complete and hand in to the agent at the end of the open house showing! I learnt from that and after losing out on a couple of places made sure we had references, proof of salary and employment, ID, etc all photocopied and ready to hand in to help the approval process and this worked well for us.

I would be cautious about giving yourselves only a month to find somewhere. Where we thought we might want to be when looking online remotely turned out to be quite different when we were on the ground and driving around the areas. We were lucky in that we had a corporate relocation agent helping us with our property search and she knew her areas very well and gave us great advice and drove us around areas we had not looked at.

Having said that when our rental came up for renewal last month we had already decided to move away from the suburb we were in, 6-7kms north of the city and we chose to move further away to the Bayside area. We are happy we did, we are enjoying the new surrounding area better than living so close into the city.

From putting in the application to getting the keys in both cases was quick - we could have moved within two weeks had we wanted to, we delayed both places to suit us a bit better. As the required notice period is usually only a couple of weeks most places advertised were available immediately or within the next few weeks.

Bermudashorts

I think a month is about right. But I don't think it will be a week to find somewhere and then three weeks to move in. More like the other way around, two or three weeks to find somewhere and then another week to sort the paperwork and move in.

A lot of the open houses run on Saturdays so your first weekend more likely to be getting a feel for the process, it can be a lot more competitive than in the UK. Of course you could be one of those lucky ones that likes and secures the first place you see, but most people seem to have got somewhere within a few weeks.

Belle121

Hi,
I'm moving mid August to Brisbane too.
I'm going to rent a serviced apartment for the first few weeks while I sort out my mums house on the Gold Coast. She passed away in Jan so I need to clean place up, sort out the possessions and hopefully move in while I look for somewhere to buy in Brisbane.
I've been turned off the thought of renting as its a crazy system of open days while hoards of other people competing and hence offering over the asking price to secure the property.

My son will be attending BRisbane Boys College in January, so I'm hoping that I can purchase a place within a 20 min commute from the school.

I guess if you arm yourself with enough knowledge of the renting procedure and have all your documents in hand it won't be a surprise when you're faced with it.

Good luck for the big August move!

Babsw

I live on North Lakes and while I know it's not every ones favourite suburb, there are a lot of available rentals in good areas on here. Might just be an option for starting out or it might be too far out of city in northern suburbs for you? Schools are good around here and travel into city is ok.

Mrs_skinner

Thanks for your replies We have been looking at redland bay/ mount cotton areas for rentals. We have friends out that way and spent a fair bit of time in Alexandra hills so I think thats where we are looking at settling. Thanks for the advice in how competitive it can be and will definitely be prepared with the paperwork. Our stuff will be due to arrive mid to late sept so am really hoping we have secured something by then.

We haven't really considered north side but always open to change our temporary accommodation is in greenslopes so quite central. We have a little girl who is due to start school in January so good schools are also a factor. Lots to think about!!