We have learned a lot in the very short time we have been here about apartment hunting. Here is how the process goes. You look on line for available rental properties, if there is an inspection scheduled (open house) then you simply go to the inspection, which only last 15 minutes (yes 15 minutes), if an inspection is not scheduled you can contact the agent (yes they use rental agents) and schedule a time to inspect the property. When you attend an inspection they take your name/phone number and you and several other interested in the property view the property. If you are interested you take an application and apply for rental and you are notified if you are accepted. Sounds simple right? Well it's not...here are the catches:
The apartment looks nothing like the picture on the internet.
Just because the pictures on the internet show a pristine and lovely apartment/house doesn't mean that is what you are going to look at. I scheduled an inspection for a lovely 4 bedroom house, in our price range which looked beautiful in the pictures. I am not sure I was even at the same property. This place in real life was a dump. There were tenants living there and there was food on the counters, garbage piled in the bins, dirty laundry on the floor and not one made bed. How can one look past this and see the potential? Many places were not total dumps, but did not match the pictures on the internet listing. For example one place we really liked was lovely in the photos and lovely in person, however the photos were not of the same apartment. The kitchen was a different colour (white bench tops vs. black; white appliances vs. stainless steel) and the rooms were laid out differently.
Just because the price is listed at one amounts does not mean its what they really want.
Rentals are extremely expensive in Melbourne so we have a budget on what we can spend. When I've done searches on the internet I look only at properties within our price range. We looked at one place (where the pictures did not match what the place looked like) that was listed within our price range to find out from the agent that the price was actually $75 more per week or $300 per month more than our budget.
It turns out that the agents use old or fake pictures and make up prices just to get you there! What a total waste of time (mine and the agents). Then they tell you that all prices are negotiable as are the lease terms and the payment terms. Ugh...
With that being said, we did find 3 places that we really liked and applied. We were notified last night that we were "accepted" for one of the places...but now we're negotiating...ha! Here are some pictures of the place we liked...of course they don't look anything like the apartment we saw and would get if we accept the offer of acceptance!
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| kitchen except the one we looked at had darker cabinets, black counters and was oriented differently |
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| living area looked like this but again oriented differently |
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| The outside actually looked like this! |
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