House hunting: When the dream turns into a nightmare

I’d often day dreamed about living in an apartment by the beach, on rainy days in London.  So it’s true to say I had a bit of a wakeup call when we began to look for somewhere to live in Coogee (Clapham by the sea).

A few key bits of information about flat hunting in Sydney:

1. Living by the sea is very expensive
2. The majority of flats available to rent in our price range make prison cells look like 5 star hotel rooms
3. Your chances of finding a place to rent for 6 months are slim
4. Your chances of finding a furnished apartment to rent are slimmer still.

There is also a weird system over here that goes something like this…

• Look for properties online and make a list of places you want to see (fair enough)

• Wait for the specific viewing times of these properties to be published
• Turn up at these publicly advertised time slots with 10 or more couples and then spend no more than 15 minutes looking around with everyone else and deciding whether you want to ‘apply’ to be considered as a tenant
• Grab an application form, fill it in then wait to hear if you have ‘won’

Bearing in mind that most places are falling apart yet were still being snapped up like hot cakes, made this an extremely soul destroying process.