23. Renting a flat in Sydney

At last the flat hunting was over. As I mentioned the properties we looked at steadily improved and we ended up with a rather sizeable place in St Leonards. It was the perfect location for us – close to the train line for commuting purposes and near plenty of amenities. We also discovered that Willoughby St, which is famous for its restaurant culture, was about 2 minutes walk away.

The flat itself was bigger than most we’d seen. It had a large living area with adjacent kitchenette, a big double bedroom, huge bathroom (which actually contained a bath as well as a shower) and a study which could certainly be used as a second bedroom for guests (or for me when Isla was mad with me). As with most Sydney flats there was a balcony but this one was massive – you could almost count this as an additional living room – and it got the sun all morning so was a great place to have breakfast.

Unfortunately, the flat didn’t come with a parking space but since we weren’t planning on getting a car that didn’t matter too much. The final clincher was the fact that the property benefited from a large gym, spa and sauna with a 25m lap pool. Gym membership in Sydney costs a minimum of $80 per month (plus registration fees, etc) so at least we’d made a saving there. You know how it is in the UK – you pay £40 per month for gym membership that you never use! Well at least here it was included in the rent so if I didn’t use it then it wasn’t really a waste of money.

So that all sounds great, doesn’t it? Well there are some things you need to know about renting in Sydney. At all pretty standardised so the following applies to most properties that you look at.

Once you’ve found a place you like the look of then you have to pay a deposit. This is one weeks rent up front which you get back if you end up taking the property. This buys you seven days to think about things but if you decided you don’t want it after, say, 4 days then you’ll only get 3 days worth of your deposit back.

The agent will then speak to the bloke who owns the property and tell him what you’ve written on your application form. On this you are supposed to supply a character reference (which you seem to need for most things here) but this may be difficult if you’ve just arrived in the country and don’t know anyone. I spoke to one of the people who arranged my job over here and they were happy to put their name to paper - even though I’d never met them - so it appears to be a bit of a formality. If the owner feels you are a suitable tenant then you’ll be contacted to sign the lease.

When you sign the lease you are then expected to pay a bond. This is the value of 4 weeks rent which is returned to you at the end of your lease term provided you leave the property in good order. Along with this you need to pay either 2 or 4 weeks rent in advance so the initial outlay is quite steep. Rent is Sydney is high at the best of times so make sure you bring plenty of savings with you.

Savings are also worth having as the majority of properties are unfurnished and the cost of kitting one out may sting a little. We stopped looking at fully furnished places once we realised that “fully furnished” actually was code for “filled with total crap that you couldn’t give away and when it breaks I’ll take a whacking great lump out of you bond thanks very much.”

There are several ways to cut corners furnishing your new home. Sydney is riddled with charity shops and they can be found in most suburbs. Not all of them deliver though and if you have a car then this is a great help. Friends of ours managed to furnish their entire flat for around $400 but they were very frugal and took their time finding the best bargains in the likes of St Vincent de Paul’s and The Salvos. Keep your eyes peeled for garage and yard sales which seem to happen all the time. Almost every lamppost in the city centre has a notice stuck to it (illegally) about furniture for sale.

If you are at your wits end and you can’t find what you are looking for or don’t fancy sleeping in some old third hand bed that someone’s grandmother died in, then don’t despair. Sydney has an Ikea! It’s on the Red Train Line out at Rhodes and you can see it from the train station so it’s easy to find. There is also a sale section near the checkouts where our friends managed to pick up an ex-display double bed for $140!

So once we had a place to stay and some stuff to put in it other than our 2 suitcases we realised that we had forgotten about gas, electricity, phone and internet! The reason that I’ve not put this under a separate heading is that it’s hardly worth mentioning. There is a company called Direct Connect who do the works over the phone in a matter of minutes. I was put through to a lovely girl called Karen who sorted everything out with complete efficiency so we didn’t have to worry about anything. The best thing is that they are a free service and any estate agent can give you their brochure.

The day after signing the lease we moved in and started making our trips to the Salvos and Ikea. After living in hotels for the last 3 weeks it was great to have a place that we could finally call home. However, as I said, we were close to the train station. This didn’t bother us from the train point of view as we lived next to the tracks back in the UK and the trains here are far quieter than the Scotrail ones. Unfortunately, the Aussies are a bit too good at the public transport thing and every train arriving at the station gets it’s own tannoyed announcement. So from about 6am every day and every few minutes we would get some generic woman’s automated voice stating “the next… train… to arrive… on… platform… 2… goes to… Hornsby… stopping at… all stations to…Chatswood… and then… all stations… to Hornsby.” It got a bit irritating after a while and I’ve just realised that the word “tannoyed” has the word “annoyed” in it!