Hi,
We're leaving the UK in September and arriving in Melbourne early - mid December. We intend to rent a property as soon as we find one suitable, but in the meantime will require cheap, secure temporary accomodation. We'll probably stay in whatever hostel will have us for the first few days, but does anyone know what alternatives are available to us beyond that ?

We're two adults, with only backpacks until our container arrives.

Cheers,
Mike.

Hi Mike,

Have a look at our site and see if anything fits the bill

Andy

www.realestate.com.au

Follow the links for rentals then holiday lets, good luck.

Cheers Andy; had a quick look but they all seem a bit more than we need.
The cheapest ($560pw) has a pool table in the sitting room, a spa in the back yard and a huge outdoor 'entertaining area'!
All we really need is a one or two bed with sitting room etc. Ideally somewhere in Central or Yarra/St. Kilda - somewhere to hang out for a month to six weeks until we find a longer term rental.
That said, $560pw is still going to work out cheaper than staying in a hostel for the same amount of time I guess...

or try www.domain.com.au

then follow the links for stayz or google stayz which is the site I found accomodation for my first couple of months.

Hi just been looking at this post & before you decide were to get short term rental are you aware that you will need a postal address in oz to get a long term rental, medicare & so on its a bit of a nightmere a hostel/motel are no good for this it will save you a load of time & money if you get short term furnished rental for a few week while you get on your feet GARY

No worries, that's why we're looking for a short term (ie 'temporary') rental.
Address-wise, we're cool regardless. We have family of friends who, while they can't accomodate us, are happy for us to use their postal address. We found that long before we started to look into accom. we had to provide an Oz. address just to get my partner's visa!

Hi Mike
Try this link for a list of hostels in St Kilda http://www.australianexplorer.com/hostels/st_kilda.htm

Great, that's really useful - thanks.
Base St. Kilda certainly looks like it might be worth a closer look. Only problem might be, as we don't know the exact date we're arriving (yet) pre-booking isn't really an option - and we'll be arriving at one of the most popular times of the year! Aargh.

Try www.australianhomeaway.com.au I'm sitting in their Moonee Ponds flat as I type, and they're property is inexpensive and perfect for when we first arrived.