Shelter Found, 7-Eleven Assists

We knew we needed a phone once we got here to help contact agents during our apartment hunting. As Matt explained, our Droid smart phones from the states don't work in Australia. However, until we knew phone plan discounts provided by our company, we didn't want to buy a smart phone just yet. So, we bought this magenta pink phone-that-just-makes-calls to share during our first 2 weeks here. 

It certainly makes calls, but no GPS. We needed a map!

This is the map we used to navigate the city while inspecting potential apartments.

Why yes, it is from 7 eleven.... 

And it does have all of their locations marked....
But it did the trick!

The biggest thing we learned while apartment hunting, has to do with inspection times. We primarily used Domain, with the addition of a few other sites, to help find available apartments. When ready, agents would list inspection 15 minute windows that anybody could attend to view their apartment. This has its drawbacks. First of all, it becomes highly publicized, so by that time you are fighting with a bunch of other contenders for your application to be picked. Secondly, most places with inspections were not the nice places.

Before we got to Australia, we tried e-mailing agents through Domain to set up times to view once we got there. This more often than not ended up with emails going to the wrong place, or replied to with a template response included inspection times occurring before we even arrived.

One option is to ask the agent at an inspection if they have any other places you could see. That worked for us twice. However, the best way to apartment hunt here, is to go directly call a real estate office. They will know have all their current properties available that all their agents are responsible for. Many front desks of these offices were willing to let us come on down, pick up keys, and see available apartments in our price range that very day. We found two places we loved doing this! One we found the number for by seeing their available apartments on Domain. The other we found through random business cards we obtained, but more on that later. 

The first apartment we loved was right in the CBD (Central Business District)....but were told that we would have to wait for our references to be reviewed. Once the agent got back to us, she told us that she would review our references... and the owner was replacing the carpets of the place so it wouldn't be available for a week at the earliest. 

As a backup, we wanted to find another place we liked enough to put in an application. The rest of the places we had seen had only been so so, and we had toured many apartments. At our wits end, we remembered some business cards we had picked up.

The first day we were in Melbourne (as in just off the plane), we inspected two places. While chugging Monster energy drinks to combat our exhaustion, we attempted to figure out the tram system, and headed to the first apartment inspection. We ended up there pretty early, and it was locked. During our walk from the tram stop to the apartment, we had noticed a different (much nicer looking) apartment complex. We decided to wandered over and check it out to kill time. Hey, worst comes to worst it could be unlocked and a warm place to wait in! This complex was also locked. To our luck, a nice older man was walking in, and showed us the front desk that had a phone on it to call management. Nobody was at the desk, so we picked up the phone, and explained that we were curious if any places were available in that apartment. A fellow with a thick Australian accent replied that he didn't lease it out himself, but he had some business cards of agents he could give us. As we waited for him to come downstairs, we realized we were almost late for our inspection. We allllmost left, but just then, the fellow I spoke with on the phone walked into the lobby and gave us the business cards. Cards in hand, we hurried back to the inspection. I'm glad we waited for the cards at the nice complex, because the inspection we were supposed to go to was horrible, damp, dimly lit, prime Huntsman territory. 

Anyways, we decided to try giving the 'calling the leasing agency' thing another whirl, and called the agents on those random business cards. Two of them had places available we could see that day, within our price range, and where we wanted to live!

The first place was pretty close to what we wanted, but between the baby blue carpeting and older fixtures, we wanted to see the next place. Still, a pretty decent backup.

The minute we walked into the second leasing agency, we A) laughed ourselves because they were literally next door to our hotel the Westin B) were very impressed by how swanky, hip, and well lit the place was. We hoped their apartments were just as nice! We picked up the keys to two apartments in a complex of theirs that had availability. To get there, we walked through the beautiful Fitzroy Gardens, and arrived at what is now our apartment complex. Downstairs was a wine bar, a grocery store, and a bunch of restaurants. The apartment lobby was gorgeous. However, we knew from past apartments that many complexes had done face lifts to the downstairs and not updated the upstairs, so didn't get our hopes entirely up. When we got to the floor of the first apartment and were still impressed. When we walked in, we looked at each other grinning. We checked out the apartment on the other floor, and loved it too, but preferred the layout of first one we saw. Incredibly excited, we hurried back to the leasing agency. We now had a backup of that place in the CBD, plus both of these apartments with this new agency. Finally, after our week long quest for apartments where none seemed quite right, we could take a breath, and stop freaking out about how much longer we would have to live in a hotel.

Through a combination of us willing to take the apartment that day, and offering to pay an extra month up front, we got the apartment that we loved! We had already pulled together all the information an apartment application needed when we applied to the other place, so we were ready to apply. She reviewed our bank statements/offer letters/passport and accepted the bond (agencies use bonds, individuals leasing their apartments directly use deposits, but they mean the same thing), and gave us the keys that day.

We now live in East Melbourne, right near Fitzroy Gardens. Thank you, 7 Eleven map and pink phone to call that random agent. On top of everything, we later found out that the complex is the renovated historical Victoria Bitter Ale Brewery. Though perhaps not the most delicious beer currently, as beer lovers, we still find it pretty cool. Pictures/video of the place to come!

http://www.student.nbend.k12.or.us/2012/nbalvarez/Images/MonsterEnergyDrinks.jpg