We got ourselves a rental for a year !

Before we found a nice rental we went all over the Sunshine Coast, we have seen about 10-20 rentals and man... do you get some rundown places around here! The absolute worst place we saw was actually in one of the nicest settings : On the beachfront. The house was absolutely disgusting, the previous tenants or owners must have been pigs ( literally ). If the dead bird in front of the entrance wasn't enough warning, the 100's of dead cockroaches ( 4-5 cm big ) certainly were. The property manager even had the audacity to ask us how we liked the place, to which I was all too happy to respond : "I think it's a dump. This place should be bulldozered". The place was up for rent for 480 per week, imagine that ! The paint was ugly, the wallpaper was falling off, even the ceiling-ventilators were rusty and broken, I won't even tell you about the kitchen and the toilet. The place was dark too, there were only 2-3 windows. If Hannibal Lecter ever visited Australia I knew where he stayed : On Ocean Drive in Warana.

However, we managed to find a really nice place and we signed the lease yesterday. In Europe it would be called a rental agreement but here's it's called a lease. We signed up for a 12 month lease for a few good reasons. First of all, there aren't that many renters looking for houses around at the moment, but signs are strong that within a few months that will change : After all the Sunshine Coast attracts a lot of people during summer : The Australian rental markets are usually very overcrowded, so we decided we wanted to be sure of at least one year of housing, after which we will probably build anyway. Usually you will meet about 12-15 people per rental house viewing. Houses for rent at 350 or less per week will, even during these times, attract dozens of couples per viewing, and you'll have to compete with them and of course everyone has better references than we do, since we're migrants and have no references. Some couples will go to great lengths to "secure themselves" a rental place : They will offer anywhere from 20 to 50 dollars per month extra on top of the asking price just to be considered. The phrase "secure yourself" is used a lot when trying to rush the sheeple into buying something : "secure yourself a future now, buy this house now prices are still low" etc, while prices are just about to collapse.

So , in our infinite wisdom, we thought we'd do the opposite : We'd go and have a look at houses above the usual price bracket that most people would look at on the internet and offer LESS than the asking price : How's that for a genius plan. Anyway, we went to see this house which was up for 380 per week, it's a real nice house in the middle of a rain forest clearing, lots of palm trees all around and well maintained houses, something that is not an obvious thing here in Australia. We offered 350 per week for it and eventually settled on 365, which we eagerly accepted. For 365 per week we got a clean , well maintained property in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the Sunshine Coast : Buderim. Buderim is a hilly place with some nice pockets of rain forest and doesn't have the busy feel that most of the newer estates like Mango Hill have. The houses still have plenty of privacy and room around them instead of being packet 50cm from each other. The house doesn't have air conditioning but it has a forest right at the back of the garden ( which no doubt is home to some scary native spiders ! ) which provides shade over the house almost the whole day, while the garden gets sun all day. Perfect for sitting outside in the sun when you want to , yet cool enough to be able to sleep at night. We'll be sure to post some pictures when the lease goes in, which is next week Monday.