Inspections

…on my way to the viewing

Today I have taken half a day off of work to start looking at housing. Not so much because I think that I will find the one right off the bat, but more because I think it’s a good idea to get into the swing of things and see how they work.

You see, renting a house here in Melbourne is a combination of job application and requesting a bank loan. There are lots of forms to be filled in, personal information to be shared and application letters to be written. And at the end of it all it’s still waiting for the owner to accept you. It is all rather different from the Netherlands, where it is very much a buyers market.

I have made appointments to see two houses located along the coast, south of Melbourne. I am heading into suburbia…

…on my way back to the hotel

Well, this was an interesting afternoon.

Not so much the houses. They were smallish compared to where we live now, and had this “wooden house” feel to them that I already know from when I lived in the US. And while the first one was nice in its own way, the second was rather cluttered.

But the interesting part was the way that these viewings went. At the first house there were 4 potential tenants having a look. The agent told me that he already had several applications at the office and if I wanted to have a chance, I’d have to react quickly. He was fully counting on having a new tenant moving in “by next Friday”, which would mean that the house stood empty for all but two weeks. So you have to be very quick here.

At the second house there were more than 10 viewers (some alone, some with the whole family), and I didn’t even bother to have the agent take down my name. Just not quite what we were looking for.

conclusion

Bottom line: I think we’ll have to accept the fact that if we want to find something in the next three weeks, we’ll have to be on our toes, well prepared and willing to start paying rent long before we move it. And we’ll need a bit of luck.