Weekly Rents Sydney- Negotiable ??

[batsforlashes]

Hello,

We are starting the process of finding a place to live in Sydney and of course all the houses that I like are really expensive . Does anyone know if the rent price quoted on domain or real estate are the set price or more a "guide" .. I know when we rented our own house out we put the price up at x and hoped to get just under it.

Obviously this will largely come down to supply and demand but as a rule of thumb it would be good to know and not waste my time getting excited about a house.

Thanks

Bx

I was in Sydney a couple of months ago, and remember reading something (I think in the SMH) about how rental vacancy rates in Sydney are around 1-1.5 per cent, which is extremely low, so it is a landlord's market. From what I have heard, you get people at rental viewings competing to offer more than each other to secure a place, or submitting letters outlining why they are the perfect tenants.

It wasn't quite that bad when I was renting in Sydney (about 15 years ago), but even then you had to be very quick off the mark, and there was no question of offering under the asking price. Of course, some areas may be less popular than others, but if you are looking for decent family housing in OK areas, then I think the asking price is what you have to pay (if not more). Sorry.

Couldn't find the article I read, but this one from this month paints a fairly bleak picture - 'normal' vacancy rates, when there is a reasonable balance of supply and demand, are around 3-5 per cent, but according to that, in central Sydney it is less than 1 per cent.

Thanks for that. Not exactly the news I wanted ... Funny though we have been stalking domain.com for the last couple of months and a lot of the houses are listed for weeks and then you often see an updated price which is lower than the original. We will just have to see- about to make an offer on Monday so we will either be laughed out of it or else have a happy surprise !

The price advertised is what they want, and there will probably be 10 other people at the viewing all armed with references and application forms. It depends where you are, but here in the eastern suburbs thats my experience. We're currently looking for a 3 bedroom flat and can't find anything decent for under $800 p/wk. A decent house in this area is $1000 p/wk minimum unless you are lucky. Friends pay $1500 p/wk for a lovely townhouse.

I agree with what the others have said - it's a real landlords market here, and you are competing with other tenants for the houses. It's very common for people to offer above the asking price, or to take on longer tenancies in order to secure themselves a property. When we were looking a year ago, we were regularly viewing properties that had 20 other couples looking round at the same time as us. A lot of agents want people to have seen the property before they will consider them as tenants too (some weren't particularly happy that I was looking round without my husband there as well). It means it can be really hard to get a property organised before you get out here (we went into temporary short term accomodation for a month when we got out here instead)

Also, beware the photos on domain of rental properties - they often don't reflect reality. We saw a few properties that looked promising on domain, but were total dumps when we looked round them (and there were still loads of people handing in applications). If it looks too good to be true (particularly cost-wise) then it almost certainly is (and I suspect some of the properties you saw with reduced prices on domain are those sort of houses)

Sorry to be a bit negative, but I was really shocked by how hard it was to secure a rental when we arrived - I'd been told it was competitive, but it really had to be seen to be believed. It does depend on the area you want to live in to some extent - we are in a more popular area, so it was particularly tough.