Vivien Pailas has one piece of advice for anyone hunting for a rental property in Sydney: “Lower your expectations.”
Pailas relocated back to Australia in February with her British husband, Simon Myall, and her five-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Georgia, after 15 years living in London. She didn’t expect it would take 35 house inspections and a rental agent to secure her family a home.
Their story
“We got here in early February, and my wrong assumption was we’d just get an Airbnb for a few weeks.
“I knew [the rental market] was difficult. I was on Facebook groups that were talking about how hard things were. But I thought, we’ve got money in the bank, my husband has a good job … I didn’t anticipate it would take so long and be so difficult.
“We stayed at my parents’ for the first week. Then 10 days after we arrived, I booked an Airbnb on the northern beaches for a week while I started the rental search.
“It was just crazy, there were people lining up at the front of the houses, lines of people snaking down the road, it was really disheartening.
“I extended the Airbnb for a week, then we had to leave and I got another [one]. My husband was working in makeshift accommodation and I was having to entertain my five-and-a-half-year-old and dragging her around viewings, it was all getting really stressful so we ended up going back to my parents.
“Because we didn’t have a permanent address, I couldn’t get her into school, so I tried to get her into childcare but I couldn’t because of her age. She was crying every night, really unsettled … it was all just a nightmare.
“Then a friend suggested a rental agent, because we were going to a lot of viewings where the houses were nothing like the photos on the website, really misleading, so you’d walk in and walk straight back out again.
The budget
“We were looking at approximately $1,000 per week for a three-bedroom house … a very decent budget for suburbs in the inner west and in the Lane Cove area on the lower north shore. We applied for a few places in Lane Cove and didn’t get them.
“They were properties that were in really good condition, renovated, all the mod cons.
“These were the properties that were in demand the most, because many places were quite old and nothing had been done to them. It was very deflating finding a place you really liked and could see yourself living in, then not getting it.
The properties
“I went to some places that were just dumps.
“There was one instance where we walked into a property that still had the current tenants living there and the place was disgusting. It had clothes everywhere, dirty dishes in the sink, muddy floors and smelt like mould. We walked straight back out again.
“Others – the photos were really, really old. Or they’d put one or two photos and that’s it. And there was high competition – we were applying and not getting houses, even offering three months’ rent upfront.
“So I had to pay for the privilege [of a rental agent] to get a property … which I think is just ludicrous. I didn’t even know they existed.
“The fact the service exists is really telling of how dire the market is. And we’re lucky we can afford it. It’s an extra expense we didn’t budget for, but we had to suck it up.
“She started helping us narrowing down areas – because the ones we were looking at were so in demand and the stock was so low, there just weren’t enough rental properties, and the competition was so fierce, we had to look elsewhere.
“I had coaching from her on how to secure a property – how to introduce yourself and be memorable. She also told us to get references from old neighbours to say what respectable people we were, and to apply for properties before we’d seen them.
“It’s ridiculous talking about it, but that was our reality – going to viewings and trying to schmooze the rental agent, saying ‘Hi! We’re the couple that just moved from London, we’ve got a small child and we love the area!’
“I probably did about 20 inspections, and then the rental agent did another 15 before we eventually found a rental property in April. And we were ready. We knew what we needed to say, what we needed to offer, we were primed and got it.
The result
“We settled on something in Lindfield, on the upper north shore, that didn’t tick all the boxes, but it will do.
“We’ve definitely gone over budget, but we just needed a place to live and to get my daughter into school. It’s not in the area we wanted to live in and it’s $300 more per week than we wanted to spend.
“But its got space for my husband and [me] to work from home, and we wanted outdoor space because we didn’t have that luxury in London. We wanted to live in a house – and that’s where the problem is, there’s really high demand for houses, and they’re really, really expensive.
“You can search properties and see how much tenants are paying for rent. And in most cases, rentals we were looking at were increasing rent by $50 to $100 a week … they’re just taking advantage of the crisis.
“London’s rental market is pricey depending on where you live. But there’s a stack more properties available. Here, there’s just not enough houses to go around.
“We’re just really relieved we actually have a place to live, not crashing at my parents’ house in one tiny spare room for three of us.”
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