How to Find an Apartment in Sydney

I would hope that most people would say I am a fairly low maintenance person.  I’m flexible, patient, and positive in most situations.  So far, there have been some parts of this adventure that have made me second guess my disposition and make me think I should be a little more vocal about my dislikes and not be so flexible all the time.  “Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Move on.”  My father-in-law gave me this bit of advice from the one and only Jimmy Buffett and I follow that advice daily…sometimes with very deep breaths that might be mistaken for loud sighs or sound something like “UUUUGGGGHHHHH!” but I have my moment and then “move on.” 

I’m sure you are all curious and wondering why we’ve been here for a month now and we’re still complaining about not having an apartment.  (So is a certain KC Cerner employee who is causing deep chest pains to pair up with my frequent breaths, loud sighs, and uuggghhhhing!  And I would love to invite her to come here and spend a week with me to truly see this process first hand!)  ***breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing

It’s very difficult to explain but necessary for me to try in a blog of its own.  One, so that you can try to understand but also for Luke and me to have this documentation so we can look back some day and remember this part though I’m not sure we could ever forget! 

This frustrating process begins by choosing an appropriate budget.  While living in Sydney is like any big city, there is also a very high cost of living.  We have decided that we would like to still afford traveling around Australia and the surrounding areas if we are going to be here, be able to go out to eat without feeling guilty, and experience this adventure without feeling strapped- so we hope the apartment budget we have chosen will allow us to do this.  When you rent an apartment here you pay per week.  For example, when you see a price of $400, $560, $620, or $710 in the U.S., you know it’s per month- here it means PER WEEK!!!  For a tiny 1 or 2 bedroom apartment! 

After you have chosen a budget, you have to decide what areas you would like to live in.  Luckily for us, when we came for our initial visit in August we were able to see several areas that we liked and now that we’ve been here we have a better idea of what will be best for us.  Next, you can look online at a couple of good websites that update as new apartments are available www.domain.com.au/ and  www.realestate.com.au are the two we have used.  If you want to practice put in the suburbs of Kirribilli, Neutral Bay, Crows Nest, Milsons Point, or McMahons Point which are just a few of the areas where we have been looking.  Feel free to put in the price YOU would feel comfortable paying PER WEEK and see what you find! ;)  You had to raise that number a lot, didn’t you?????

After we do this about 2 or 3 times a week, we make a list of the apartments we would like to see.  And by “list” I mean Mr. Spreadsheet (Luke), puts them into a color coded-fancy pants- easy to read-spreadsheet!  This usually takes several hours by the time we both get finished...each time!!!  If there is an “inspection time” we add that to our list and put them in order by time and day.  Several locations require for you to call the realtor and set up an inspection time that can be anytime during the week as long as they can get into the property.  Another time consuming part!  Some inspections are on Wednesdays 11:00 a.m.-6:00pm (The midweek inspections have mostly been my job and extra difficult when Luke has been traveling but I’ve made the attempts each week)  but most are on Saturdays starting around 9:00 a.m. until as late as 3:00pm.  

An inspection is only for 15-20 minutes where a realtor unlocks the location for you to quickly “inspect” it and then you get an application from him/her if you want to apply.  During an inspection there are usually about 12 to 35 other people/couples also looking that you are bumping into because the apartments are so small, everyone's trying to ask the realtor questions that they don't seem to always know the answers to…and they are also taking an application.  Are you still with me????? 

Then you basically run across the city to get to the next inspection on time, sometimes in the pouring rain, not really having any clue where you are going, and sometimes you can catch a taxi but it’s really expensive and they get mad if you are going a short distance only a couple of miles away!  Last Saturday, Luke and I actually looked at 12 properties and split up our list since many of them were at the same time.  We started knowing the areas a little better which helped and once I finally got my I Phone back, I had a GPS and could find a quicker route! 

After you have finished your inspections for the day, you have to decide which locations you really want to put an application in for.  We’ve put in about 3-5 each time.  We’ve been going to Luke’s office for a few hours following that to fill out each application, then scan in all of our paperwork, then email them to each realtor for that property.  For some reason each realtor has a DIFFERENT application.  UGH again! When you are not a local you must provide the following: a completed application for each of us, our current housing contract (which is with our Corporate Housing company), proof of us being home owner’s in the states, current and past employment info, driver’s license, passport, Australian health insurance card, Visa, a utility bill (we used Time Warner!), Luke’s pay stub, Luke’s letter of employment for here, bank information, two references, your left kidney, the rights to your first born, and a vile of your blood.  Ok, so the last three aren’t real but I want to make sure you aren’t too bored yet! 

Then it’s time for the waiting game.  Some of the realtors called to tell us we weren’t accepted, someone else was chosen instead of us (landlord wanted a single lady), there were too many other applicants but our application is just fine, etc. But most of the time we would email or call to follow up and get the news.  We continued to ask around to see what exactly we needed to do to get chosen.  After several weeks of being denied, we found out we might have to offer $10 or more dollars a week to the rent so that the landlord has a reason to choose you over someone with basically the same applications. Also we started having our paperwork ready to hand to them on the spot to show our greater interest.  Luke of course went above and beyond that and we started printing off an application ahead of time to fill out if we thought it might be “the one” and we’d email it ahead of time with all of our paperwork. 

It has been exhausting!  The most frustrating part is WE HAVE BEEN TRYING (girl at Cerner, ugh!!) and we are putting hours and hours and hours into this.  Our Saturdays are filled with this process instead of doing the touristy things we’d like or even just to spend time with each other after Luke’s been working and/or out of town all week long.  We even found ourselves arguing about things and being mad at each other the first week or so until we realized it wasn’t US that was causing this stress so we are happy newlyweds once again and we’ve decided to keep working as a team!  J  And we are a good team! 

Now for the good news!  After 34 days of this awful process, a landlord finally accepted us!  It’s even a property that we really like and has most of the things we were hoping to find in a place here.  The only downfall is that we cannot move in until after December 21^st.  The major stress we’ve had the last several days is that our temporary housing in that great building in Darling Harbour ran out after 30 days because someone else was moving in so they told us we had to move over to a hotel.  This hotel is fine if you are just needing a place to crash for one night but it isn’t a place to have to LIVE for the next several weeks as some have said we will need to do.  I don’t THINK so!!!!!!!  So thanks to Luke and his very understanding and supportive managers in KC, they are currently working on getting us back into a corporate housing apartment until we can move into our apartment.  It will be so nice to have a kitchen and a fridge again so we can stop eating out for every meal and spending so much unnecessary money with that!  And also so Luke has a place to work if he needs to wake up in the middle of the night to talk to his U.S. clients and other Cerner people and our 18 boxes/suitcases (yes, we added one more with our golf clubs that arrived) don’t have to be all over the place.  (see picture I’ve included) 

Hopefully this will give you some understanding of what we've been going through, why we may have seemed a little tense lately and why I've been extra homesick and in a real funk.  But we thought you should all know it's not all rainbows and kangaroos over here all the time!  :)

Do I think that I’ll stop being low maintenance, flexible, patient, and positive?  Probably not, but I sure hope I can stop feeling frustrated, anxious, and get back to sleeping past 3:00 a.m. every night!  Sorry for the lengthy blog but it needed to be explained and I got to vocalize a little of my frustration without getting Luke fired!!!  ;)