How long to find a rental

[Noona30]

Hi everyone, we will be making our move to Adelaide in August this year and we would love to have a house to move into as soon as we arrive. This’s mainly so that we can register our kids for school as soon as possible and also to save on the cost of temporary accommodation. Fortunately for us we currently live in Singapore so it is possible to make one or two trips to Adelaide prior to our move to organise things. We will only have 2 weeks after we arrive before my husband will return to Singapore to work, so the more we can organise prior to the move the better, as I will then be alone with 4 kids between 4 and 9 until the next time he comes to visit. So my question is if I come for 4 days or so  around beginning/mid July will that be enough time to view and secure a place to rent to start in August? I understand that the procedure is usually open inspections, are most of these usually over weekends or do they tend to be if and when? My husband will continue to work in Singapore for the first few months after the kids and I move while looking for a suitable job to keep the income coming in, so we will have a provable income, albeit not in Australia. Will I be better off hiring a relocation agent? Any advice gratefully received!

[HelenS]

We landed in Adelaide on a Saturday night and then spent the next 2 days sorting out car rego, driving licenses, mobile phones, bank & medicare etc. We didn't start looking at houses until Tuesday (saw 3) then Weds my husband started work and so I looked at a further 2 properties with just the kids. We made an offer on the best one on Thurs which was accepted straight away and then enrolled the kids in school on the Fri. Done and dusted in a week. I contacted the agents and made appointments to view the properties, we didn't actually go to any opens. 

I think it would be possible to achieve what you need in the time that you have but do a lot of research first. Look at properties on realestate.com.au and check the school zones. We wanted a house with a pool which made it slightly easier as it eliminated a lot of properties. I then checked the school zones for all the available rentals with pools in Adelaide which only left us with a total of 5 houses in the zones of schools which we liked. We were lucky at the time (2015) because there was still space in our chosen school but some of them are now over subscribed and cannot take you even if you live in the zone. Call the schools first to check if they have places available in your kids years

Make sure you have all the paperwork that you need with you if you want to sign a lease while you are here on a visit plus enough money to pay the bond and the first month rent

Good luck

[Noona30]

Thanks Helen S, my plan was to pick some schools that have spaces then call agents to arrange viewings of properties we found on websites that we like within the zones for those schools. Looks like it might be possible with a lot of research and organisation. 

[snifter]

Rental inspections can often been on weekdays in the late afternoon/early evening. Most of the time its sale opens on weekends but some do have rental opens too. 

TBH unless you have a very good idea of school preferences then it could be hard going. Keep in mind that renting in an expensive area to get into a highly sought after zoned school may not work well later down the track if you decide to buy but cannot afford to do so in the suburb or surrounding ones. You could end up with a long commute to schools which is far from ideal in rush hour. 

I also think there is much to be said for being somewhere and having time to get a feel for what suits your needs in terms of area. There are many factors to consider, not just schools. You also could rent in an area only to find your husband later secures work the other side of the city and has an hour plus commute each way or some such which is far from ideal in the longer term. 

We took 7 months after we arrived to scout areas for the longer term. So before we arrived I got in touch with a few schools in the area we were going to be in initially (but knew we would not stay in long term) and then did tours when we arrived. Picked the one I liked, a bit further away but preferred it over the local more in demand school and enrolled, started the next day. However, we always knew that at some point in the first year or so we hoped to buy in an area that suited us for the longer term as a family and that we would most likely change schools also. We bought a house 7 months or so in, I stuck with staying at the school in our old area for a term but by the end of it had had enough of the 20 minute commute each way (spending 40 minutes twice a day in the car was wearing for me, son hated it each way too as it meant he lost his down time, we had to leave stupidly early in the morning and sit in rush hour and so on). We had already done the school tours before we bought the house (and researched them well plus the area ticked all our boxes) so we changed schools to the local one in our area (and planned to start at from the beginning of the next school year) and have never looked back. Son loved it from when he changed schools, preferred it over the previous one and has gone from strength to strength. 

If you really want to go out from schools only and that is it, then check the schools listings and the houses for rent in the area, their prices etc and see how quick they get snapped up. Also keep in mind there can be some really crappy houses, even in the supposed really good areas and of course, you could well be paying a lot for them too. Often the landlords are sitting on them and the land and don't care about the house. Modern ones are better in this respect as at least not falling down but the build quality is something to look at, as is the block size in terms of outdoor space etc if you have kids.  

 

[Noona30]

Snifter thank you for all your advice!  Sorry, I don’t think my original post is clear, I was only asking if it is possible to secure a rental property itself within 4 days to a week, not to choose an area and a school etc in that time. I meant literally time between looking a  property and securing a contract. 

We are also coming for a few weeks as a family in May to scout around for areas that we may want to live and hopefully do a few school visits to get an idea what our options are. The reason I focus on the school it is a way to limit the number of areas we have to look at. I’m not looking at highly sought after schools as I know I may have issues getting 4 places in 4 different grades. But I also know from experience (this is our third international move) that getting back into routine helps my kids to settle, and being at school will give them the opportunity to make friends.

We we are already doing a lot of research on property prices in the areas we think might suit us and we know which areas are out of our Budget. But we are looking to rent for the first year to make sure we make the right decision. I’m trying to initially limit our school choices by second language, then by location and hopefully come up with a list of 10-15 areas to look at before we arrive, then maybe arrange a few school visits the second week of our trip. Obviously this will depend on wether schools will entertain this when we are not yet living in the country. I too am trying to avoid the 40 minute school run! I have also experienced this and I’m not looking to repeat it. But I have experienced putting my children into a school that was not right for them, and how unhappy that made everyone! 

If anything I’m more likely to be overly picky with area since I do hope not to have to move my children’s school again, by the time we move down my eldest will be on her 5th school at the grand old age of 9. To that end any advice you can give on locations with pleasant, caring schools that teach either German or Indonesian at LOTE that may have spaces and where we might not have to pay much more than half a million dollars for a 4 bedroom house, would be great! Or any other advice on choosing suitable suburbs for that matter!

 

 

[snifter]

You can find what schools teach what languages here. As to if any of them are what you are after, I don’t know. 

https://www.decd.sa.gov.au/teaching/curriculum-and-teaching/primary-and-secondary-curriculum/languages-offered-government-schools 

 

[Jsmull87]

Hi, @HelenS

can I ask how you went about changing your licence  prior to getting a home? I’m confused as some sources say you need an address for your licence and then I hear you need the licence to get the enough Id for the address.. 

Which came first, the   or the ..