Renting in Australia

I have officially completed my first full week of work! And while objectively, it was pretty mundane (lots of reading, lots of virtual orientation modules about things like how to use the library, and what respectful communication looks like), it feels big.

Some clear wins: I successfully made it to the right building every day, I found other people to eat lunch with for 4 out of 5 of the days, I genuinely like the work I'm doing. And some areas for improvement: I still can't get my ID badge to open the building doors (Luckily there is someone at reception, so I just kind of stand in front of the doors and look desperate until they notice me and let me in), I still don't know anyone's name, and I keep forgetting to buy my own coffee pods for the lunchroom coffee maker.

Inevitably when people introduce themselves to me, they tell me who their supervisor is/which lab they are working with. I have no idea who anyone other than my own supervisor is, so I always just politely smile and say 'oh, okay' as though I understand the context. I'm hoping I can get away with this for at least the next 6 months.

I was much more homesick this week than I was expecting. I think it has to do with me being at work all week rather than off doing touristy things. It really hammered home that this is where we live now, and we need to start doing all the boring, everyday stuff involved with daily life. Which brings me to the task that consumed all of my non-work hours: finding an apartment.

Before I get into Justin & I's experience, you are all going to need some context on what renting is like in Australia:

Renting an apartment in Australia is a bit different than it is at home. Obviously things are still posted on line. Except the rent is advertised as the price per week. But when you actually rent a place, you pay monthly. So.... that's a choice.

Apartments are posted and managed by real estate agents rather than landlords. They essentially act as property managers for the landlord. Apparently even after you start renting, if you ever have issues you deal with the agent, not the property owner. I think the agents who rent places also sell homes and do all the other traditional real estate agent job, but I'm honestly not sure.

When you find a place you like, you book an inspection. This is essentially going to see the place, same as you would in Canada. But inspections are usually for pre-set time slots that you can sign up for online. Usually there are other people there at the same time. The agent shows up, says hi, and unlocks the place. Everyone goes through and takes a look. If you have any questions, the agent waits outside.

To apply for a place, you fill out an application and email it in, with a surprisingly amount of additional documentation: Proof of ID, proof of medical coverage, proof of employment/income/savings, etc. All of it is done online, and there are a couple of universal portals in use, where you can apply to multiple listings from multiple agents via a single website. In 3 or 4 days, you hear back from the agent, letting you know if you have been approved or not. If you are approved, you have 24 hours to sign the lease (which is sent to you via a secure electronic document signing app) and provide firsts months rent + the bond (a damage deposit that amounts to 1 month's rent).

Oh, and apartments don't automatically come with appliances. Whatever is there on inspection is what you get when you move in. For all of the apartments we looked at, that means no washer (which isn't really out of the norm for Canada) and no fridge (which is so weird!). Luckily most of the ovens/stove tops are built in.

We had been warned before we got here that the housing situation isn't great. Similar to the situation at home, there are far more renters than there are places to rent. This is amplified for us as we are looking in a student heavy part of town, and their school year (which runs with the calendar year) just started.

As I was fully emersed in school all week, Justin has taken on pretty much all of the housing hunt. He had multiple inspections booked every day, all week. We wanted to start early so we could figure out what the process would be like. We had two inspections last Saturday. They were around the same time, so we had to split up. The place I saw wasn't that great, but the one Justin looked at checked all of our boxes: clean, bright, close to school (for me), close to transit, parking spot, decent kitchen, washer hookups, in our price range. Despite being one of the first places we looked at, we put in an application for it that weekend.

As the week went on, Justin looked at a bunch more places. Some weren't great. Others were worth applying for. He definitely noted that the inspections were way busier throughout the week. And we had one instance of booking an inspection only to have the landlord change the price to outside of our budget before the inspection. We put in two more applications one evening during the week, only to wake up the next morning to an email that our first application had been approved. We had to sign a lease agreement and put down a deposit within 24 hours to get the apartment. Great, right? Objectively, yes. Realistically, also yes, but with a giant helping of anxiety to go along with it.

You know how you can decide you want to make a big purchase, like a car or a house or something? And you do your research, think about what you want, go over all your options and make an informed decision. Then you have to actually sign the paperwork and you are suddenly struck with paralyzing anxiety about whether or not this is the right decision? Yea, making those kinds of decisions when you have just moved to a different country are (shockingly) NOT any easier. And thus began the spiral of doubt: Did we even like this place? Should we wait to see what else is out there? Maybe the rental market isn't as bad as others said? Can we afford it? Is this actually the WORST decision we have EVER made ever? How did we even end up in Australia anyways!?!?

So there was a solid 8 hours of that. We got the confirmation email first thing in the morning. Justin & I talked about things briefly before I left for work. we were undecided on whether we should take it. I think eventually we landed on yes. While I was at work, one of us would call the other every few hours stating they had changed their mind, and we would talk in circles for a while, before definitely deciding that we either were, or weren't, going to take it.

I resorting to asking a bunch of colleagues for their opinions, and just sort of exploded all over them in an anxious mess. No doubt a fantastic way to make friends. Actually, to be fair, lots of them commiserated with the choice, and talked about how long it had taken a lot of their friends to find places. Everyone was very nice about it, and a couple of them asked me how it turned out later in the week.

I don't remember how we finally both talk ourselves off the ledge and made a decision. I think at some point we realized that our anxiety had more to do with the fact that neither of us felt like we had all the information we would have liked to have had to make a decision this big. Realistically, we were never going to hit that point when signing a lease in a country we just moved to. So, we did the best we could with what we had. The place hit all of our must haves, and a lot of our nice to haves. We decided to take it.

I have more to say about the apartment hunt and what comes next, but I feel like I can only emotionally unpack so much at a time. I will leave this here for now. For those of you who are already frustrated with us, and kept yelling 'Just take the damn apartment!' while reading this post, buckle up - we only get more indecisive.