lancastrian48

Real -especially in Secret Harbour

Officer Dibble

Its pretty common for real estate agents to treat renters with disdain. An individual tenant brings in crumbs, the real profit is with sales commission and in a tight rental market, they have the upper hand.

Easy power trip.

HelenTD

No, even those who own in Nedlands will accept renters in Nedlands and other western suburbs, because they've had the good taste to choose that suburb. They look down on almost everywhere else.

HelenTD

That's why they need diluting with newcomers from outside WA.

Bibbs

Never looked down on me when I lived in Dalkeith

IndieG

We've been treated with respect by both the agency and the owner. Any problems were attended to immediately. In fact, we are now moving from an apartment into a house and have requested the agent to look out for one as we prefer to continue renting through them.

Officer Dibble

Thats nice, I've mostly experienced the same. From a sales perspective, real estate agents are more concerned with sales than rentals and thats when theyre helpful and more likely to co-operate.

fish.01

Australia has the same snobbery system that all countries do but I wouldn't call it a class system in the british sense. The class you belonged to still seemed very defined in Britain and all sorts of markers defined it. While you could find parallels for most of these markers in the Australian system it would only be to a lot looser degree to the point it can't be called a class system imo.

bcworld

Can you give examples of that?

fish.01

I found, living with and observing working class people in the UK that I knew, they had a real defined sense of themselves, what people like them thought, did, how they talked, the places they shopped in, the history of other working class people. There was a real sense of middle class being different and a pride and preference in some aspects of being working class.

Conversely, without any first hand experience, I imagine the upper class in the UK have a very well defined set of markers that preclude entry to people that just happen to have money.

Obviously in the UK these sort of divides are breaking down everywhere but the shadow is still there.

I just don't think Australia has the class history that you need to have a proper class system. There are just too many exceptions. You need a long history to write the rule book, you then have to hand the rules out to everyone, have the time to develop distinct markers like different accents for example, and then convince people to play the game. We are just amateurs in what has been a professional sport for centuries

bcworld

I have always thought that in Australia the often used term 'battler' has the same meaning as working class, used in the same context anyway.

rockpeblar

We get on great with our landlord, fellow pom, but the agency certainly consider us 2nd class citizens

fish.01

It overlaps sometimes but not the same thing - I guess that's what you mean by in the same context.

Battler is someone without a lot of money working hard to keep their head above water. A lot of battlers would choose not to be if they could. Obviously this isn't the same as the definition of working class in the UK where you have many people with money who would consider themselves working class and proud of it.

Dorothy

Have you ever stopped to think it could be you? I don't know anyone who rents who has been treated like shit by anyone because they rent their home. Including being treated badly by the people they rent from.

EvannTel

Class and wealth systems are not the same IMO. Here its based on have's and have nots and that is so ridiculous its not worth discussing.
If the have's think they're better than anyone else their misguided and typically Im dont find Aussies ever like this (but other migrants are). Conversely some of the have nots seem jealous of those that do. Why?

In the UK it was a class system - I mean how many of the "upper class" were flat broke in their family mansions while the tradies hwo fixed it were loaded?