Apartment hunting…

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail!

Overly dramatic I know but having done just this, finding an apartment is the worst! Let me explain.

So we are in Brisbane, Australia and have had enough of living with the backpacker lot now and we wanted to find our own place.

My advice to you if you about to apartment hunt in a new city: Firstly – Set your budget, but be very realistic. When we first came here I said $350 per week for a one bed furnished apartment in the city. No. $450+ bills p/w outside of the city and your getting warm. Some are in excess of $600 p/w!

That was the first shock to the system. Also in Melbourne when we were last here, 3 months tenancies were all the rage and so we naturally assumed this would be no issue up here in laid back Queensland…but it turns out that not a lot of people want you for less than 6 months even if you can pay in full upfront! Hmm…if they do however they hike the prices up, hence the $600+ p/w prices as discussed.

So we now have found an apartment and have to do the tenancy application, to get 100 points of ID sorted…

Passport & License ✅

But that’s not enough you need an Australian bank card and statement – but we can’t get cards without an address. We need Australian phone or utility slips a but we don’t have them because WE DONT HAVE AN ADDRESS.

It’s like a shitty loop that you have to try get around. We are heading over to the property management tomorrow with anything that features our names on in hope that they will suffice and we’ll be accepted. Otherwise we’re back to square one.

So if your looking to hire an apartment when you move into a new city, and need short term… prepare prepare prepare!!

Sorry for the ranty post!

Since then…we got the apartment! Apparently UK bills and your visa also count towards identity checks over here and we negotiated a decent cost….so we move in 3rd Otober!

Thank you to The Terrace Management for their hard work!