Sven's life in Oz

We got our flat.  After all that fuss it turns out we were very lucky: no agent in the history of Sydney lettings has ever taken someone around to see a flat when they just show up at the office.  We are indeed the jammiest pair of gays in the city.  We signed the lease and picked up the keys yesterday.  We now have an address.  Hooray!

The flat is lovely.  It’s all very modern (this is Australia, after all) and everything has been thought out, right down to the phone sockets.  There are two bathrooms so no more finding the shower in an odd position, and two balconies – one little balcony on the guest room and one mega balcony on the lounge/dining/kitchen area.  There are also the mod-cons: a separate laundry so we don’t have to watch tv and listen to the washing machine, reverse-cycle air conditioning and a dishwasher.  Oh yes, no more scrubbing pots for me.  The mega-terrace looks out over a sweet (though grassless) communal garden and underneath us there is a very well-to-do lighting shop.  The train station is within easy reach, the bus stop is right outside the door, there’s secure parking and we’re just 10 minutes from the centre of town.

The problem is the area.  It’s awful.  When we went to see the place it looked better; now I see it was the euphoria of standing a chance of renting somewhere.  I hate it.  Part of the hate comes from my ignorance of the area – it’s easy to assume the worst when something is brand new – but the lion’s share stems from the fact that everything outside our door has come straight out of the ghetto.  It’s like Tower Hamlets with sunshine.  We have an amazing balcony with some of the worst views in Sydney.  The smaller balcony looks out over the main road to the airport.  It is the ultimate, bittersweer real estate.

The consolation is that I live in Australia.  How much time are we really going to spend in the flat when there is an entire continent to explore?  It’s on a six month lease so by the time that runs out we can be move somewhere nicer; until then we have every excuse to get out and see the city, the state, the country.  This time last week it was cold, dark, wet and windy and now I’m on the other side of the world waiting for summer to kick in.  Why the fuck am I moaning?

Since this is a ‘guide’ to Oz, I should really think about imparting information rather than simply bimbling on about jetlag and sunshine.  Here then is the first proper instructive entry on something uniquely antipodean: the madcap world of the Sydney rental market.

How to rent a flat in Sydney

1.  Stop calling it a flat.
In Australia they are sometimes referred to as ‘apartments’, but most people just call them ‘units’.  ‘Flat’ isn’t a particularly glamorous term, but ‘unit’ is downright ugly, especially in an aussie accent.  Make your peace with it.  This is the least of your worries.

2.  Expect no help.
The Sydney rental market is hard work to the point of absurdity.  The ‘facts’ are these:

• 400,000 immigrants arrive in Australia every year; a large proportion of these come to Sydney
• Less than 1% of rental properties are available at any one time
• The resulting stampede means rental prices are astronomical

In summary: it’s an overpriced, dog-eat-dog clusterfuck.  Because demand reportedly outstrips supply, there is no need for agents to be nice, helpful or instructive in any way.  They’re going to let the property with or without you.  Their fees are paid by the landlords (unlike the UK, where prospective tenants pay the fees when they sign the lease) so their loyalty is not to the homeless, unworthy peasant who stumbled through the door looking for somewhere to live.  They will not spend time looking for properties for you: you have to do all the work yourself.  Charge up your laptop and start searching.

3.  Hit the internet.
The best places to search for properties are domain.com.au and realestate.com.au – every property worth having is one or both of these two sites.  Domain is the ‘go to’ for most househunters, though both are of a similar standard.  In the absence of any agency support, it must be said that these web sites have everything you need to know about a property, including details of inspections (that’s ‘viewings’ to us Brits).  Cancel all your plans for Saturday and make a list: that 1% still involves a lot of properties.

4.  Inspections are ghastly.
In the UK it’s almost a sport to go and see what properties are like, especially if they’re on your street/beyond your means/in your dreams.  Anyone inspecting properties in Australia for fun will also have an S&M dungeon in their basement.  Firstly, you are at the will of the agent.  They tell you to arrive at 9am: you are there at 9am.  In fact, you are there at 8.50am standing in the rain hoping that the weather will put off other potential tenants because in Australia, inspections are all open.  You don’t get the chance to peruse at your leisure: you and thirty others get fifteen minutes (fifteen minutes!) to poke around and decide if you like it.  We arrived for one inspection (the unit was tiny) and joined a queue that ran down the stairs, along the hall and round the corner.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Imagine twenty people in a home straight out of Liliput, all trying looking for cracks in the walls/signs of damp/integrated white goods as fast as possible.  Mayhem.

If you decide you like the place, the agent may deign to provide you with an application form, and may even – gasp! – take your number.  That’s right: you don’t get to choose the unit: the owner gets to decide which of the lucky applicants gets to take the place.  James and I didn’t really understand this because item 2 trumps everything, but unit-hunting is a blood sport.  Everyone looking for a 2 bed, 2 bath unit in a central location turns up to the same inspections as you and it becomes very competitive very quickly.   You race to turn up first, queue-jump, impress the agent with wittier banter or more convincing flattery, and covertly watch each other for signs of starry-eyed wonder in a place you want for yourself.  Deals between prospective tenants along the lines of “you take that one, I’ll have this one” are not uncommon.

5.  Even if you think you have it, you probably haven’t.
You’ve found your ideal place, and you’ve put in your application: maybe you think you can start to relax.  Oh, you are destined for homelessness, my friend.  The work is just beginning!  This isn’t a game, you know: this isn’t fun.  Twelve others have applied for your dream home and they all have jobs and a rental history: you need an edge.  By paying one week’s rent in advance you can take a property off the market for 7 days, effectively forcing the agent to take you seriously and check out your application.  At the end of the week, the owner can either approve or reject you, with no explanation for either outcome.  For a couple of brand new, jobless poms with no Australian rental history (oh yes, I forgot to mention that all the agents collude to establish your suitability as a tenant), James and I were not confident of our chances in this meritorious system.  We became quite disheartened after a morning of schlepping all over town and took a couple of hours off to have a nice lunch and a big bottle of wine.

6.  Procrastination is thief of your dream home.
After a Wagamama and nice merlot, we felt fortified enough to face the madness once more and since we were round the corner from one agent, we resolved to go in and give them our application that day.  You can whinge all you want but if you want to stand any chance you have to play by their rules.  Just by chance we passed another agency with a beautiful-looking unit in the window and, with nothing to lose, in we went.  James virtually broke down explaining to the agent how confused we were, and how we had furniture on a boat that would probably arrive before we found a home to put it in, before practically begged him for help.  Brad (no joke, that was his real name) was a diamond.  He explained to us the rules as I have outlined them above and which I am now claiming as my own work, and then kindly offered to take us to see the unit there and then.  So off we went and on the way over he explained how if we liked it, we should not hang around but go to the cash point, get the week’s rent out and get it off the market for a week; property in Sydney waits for no man.  Yes, it was partly sales-spiel, but he did have a point and we did love it, so we took his advice and went for it.  After walking all over Sydney in the rain, a chance wander through Chinatown turned a disappointing morning into a cautiously optimistic afternoon all in the space of an hour.

7.  Be patient
For all their apparent disregard for tenants, agents do seem to work quickly in sorting out the details.  If they have inspections on Saturday, they will be processing applications the following Monday.  They want the deal done and the rent coming in and they are going hell for leather to get it done yesterday.  That said, you’ve still got to wait Saturday night, all of Sunday and most of Monday before you hear from them.  Those forty-eight hours can be the longest of your life, especially for first-timers like James and me.  There are twopossible outcomes:

• Good news: you are in.  The owner likes the cut of your jib and wants to take you.  Pop the champagne, put the flags out and start packing.
• Bad news: you are a loser.  The owner wouldn’t let you their house if you were the last pair of queers on Earth.  Before you sit back down at that computer to start the process all over again, pour yourself a large glass of something strong.  You’re going to need it.

Fingers crossed for the thumbs up; my liver can’t take any more bad news.

After yesterday’s rather morose entry you will be pleased to learn that I am feeling much brighter on day two.  James and I made it through till 8pm before we both gave in.  The minute my head hit the pillow I was out like a light; I was asleep before James had finished brushing his teeth.  Fast forward to 6.30am this morning and we were both up and about like mad things house-hunting, list-making and job searching.

Greg and his lovely housemates are kindly allowing us to stay with them, and they are full of invaluable tips on Sydney living, which is great for newcomers like us.  Greg is taking us to his favourite ‘just arrived in Sydney’ restaurant tonight, and has been full of helpful hints from banking to buses.  However, rather than allowing ourselves to bask in the comfort of their welcome, we have decided to get on with finding jobs and houses straight away while we are still novel houseguests.  That way we get to come back more often – no one wants a visitor they think might never leave. On a more practical level, we need our own space sooner rather than later as our furniture arrives in three weeks and we have to have somewhere to put it.

The roles into which we have fallen look a bit like this: James finds a job, I find a house.  This suits us both: James is the one with the skills we needed to get into the country (I am simply a makeweight, de facto spouse) so its more likely he’ll find a job quicker.  I, on the other hand, am spending my day sitting in the sunshine, sipping coke and lining up viewings, or ‘inspections’, as they are intimidatingly named over here.  Two this afternoon, six more tomorrow.  Apparently we have to look at ten places before we make a decision, so after this weekend we can go for it.  How that works in a city with only 1% of its rental properties vacant at any moment is beyond me, but I’m sure I’ll learn.

Oh, and in the interests of full disclosure, I spent a couple of minutes on facebook/twitter/blogs/wikipedia, too.  Well, James would do the same.