As I’ve mentioned several times previously, we have to get out of our current rental house by 25 August. The owner wants to sell the house and make a small fortune so unfortunately we have been left in the lurch to find another place to live. When we bought the house in Tasmania we hadn’t even considered that something like this would happen to us. Now, unfortunately, we are looking at paying at least $80 per week more in rent because there is a huge rental shortage in Sydney right now. Its going to be difficult for us having this extra rent increase as we also have to pay our mortgage as well.

We have now seen about 7 or 8 different rental premises and they have all been dumps – and the outrageous thing is that in this current rental market they can now charge $400+ per week rent for these dumps and people will willingly pay that! People are desperate at the moment. We have so far filled in rental application forms for 3 places and with two of those applicatoins we were declined. The third we were approved but we decided not to go ahead with that place because it was a unit (apartment) without a balcony. I hope that we don’t end up regretting knocking that one back.

Today we went out to see 5 different places, both houses and units. We thought that we would have better luck pursuing units because the rent is less than houses and we thought our chances would be better at units. Obvously moving from a 2 bedroom house to a 1 bedroom unit we’ll be fairly cramped so we thought we could get (another) storage unit and put all of Tim’s collections and some of the larger pieces of furniture in there. One of the units that we went to look at today was a one bedroom unit for $230 a week. It must have been about 30 square metres in total – and no balcony. If you want a unit for a balcony you’ll have to pay $290+.

The other unit that we went to look at we didn’t even get a chance to get in the door – there must have been 30 people queing up to get into the unit. The queue started at the front door of the actual unit on the first floor, wound down the internal steps of the building and was spilling outside the front security door. I just can’t believe that we are in this position having to compete with these plebs. So we joined the end of the queue and then all of a sudden all the people started coming down the stairs and they started to leave. The real estate agent had basically told everyone that the viewing time is up and he has to go to his next open house, so only about 10 people got to actually go inside and see the place, everyone else including us basically had their time wasted. What a joke. Apparently this is happening all over Sydney.

The last place we went to see today was this place which was advertised as a one bedroom granny flat – yes that’s how desperate we are to find somewhere to live.

When we got there we found that the granny flat wasn’t really a granny flat but more of a refurbished garage in someone’s front yard which had been turned into a studio unit. Oh and its technically not a one bedroom because there’s no actual door closing off the bedroom from the lounge/dining area. Oh and there’s no laundry in it. But the thing is, the rent is $200 per week, its got a little fenced off courtyard and it is in good condition. At least we know that hundreds of different people haven’t previously been living here over the years, unlike some of the houses and units we have looked at so far. So if we only have to pay $200 a week in rent and the storage unit is $145 a week then we aren’t paying too much more rent than what we are currently paying. As for the downsizing from a house with a big backyard to a little studio with a paved courtyard – I think for $200 a week we could put up with it for at least 6 months, save some money along the way and also keep up with our mortgage payments. We filled out our application form for the place and I just have to go and hand it in first thing Monday morning. Actually we both really want to get the place so we have told the agent that we are happy to pay 6 months rent in advance for this place. Oh my god I hope we get it – this is the best opportunity we have had throughout this whole process.