I have heard that the rental agencies in Adelaide are quite tough with regard to what references they will accept from a potential customer.

Firstly, is this true? Have those of you that rented had a difficult time finding a place?

Also, as we have never rented before, only had a mortgage, exactly what sort of refernces are they after? I know they need one from your bank but do they ask for anything else?

Finally, how long do they usually ask you to commit for?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Sally :)

Hi Sally
We got our rented property privately but most are done through agents. We used the bank as one reference and the housing trust people (who we got the meet and greet accommodation through) as the other. Not sure who else you could use, others may have ideas???
The contracts are normally for either 6 months or 12 months. We found most to be 12 months. If you want to leave before this time, you will be responsible for any agent costs, advertising costs and any rent until the property is re-let. But the rentals seem to go quite quickly here so it was a risk we decided to take, we definately don't want to still be in this rental in 12 months. :o
All the Best
Rach :bouncing smiles:

Hi Sally,

We got written refererences from our old employers in england, just to say we were trustworthy. I also had to get my UK manager to email the agent.

We found it hard to get a rental without any references in Oz. They usually ask for at least one person in OZ from each adult ie husband and wife.

I basically asked our current agent what can we do!! She told me that they wouldn't contact the UK to get references but if we could get them to email them that would be OK.

I think basically you have to get as many refs as you can, and make it as easy as possible for the agents to 'sell' your application to the owner of the property.

We also offered to pay rent in advance, but they didn't take us up on it.

Good look,

Tracey

Sounds like we were lucky, we only applied for one place and were accepted though we know there were 3 trying for it!

We were fortunate to have met the landlords still doing the place up as we went round, and had chatted to them about the family and what we were doing here. I suspect they felt we were 'ok' people and that perhaps tipped the balance.

We were so determined to get this place we provided absolutely everything we could think of, including the bank statement showing how much we'd brought over as Howard only had (and still has!) temp work. I can't remember who we used as references, fortunately we have a couple of friends out here plus the bank, it must have been some combination of them.

There was a box to tick on our form for 6 months or 12 so we went for 12. We're only here for 2 years so don't want to have to move in the middle. The house is an investment property so I guess that weighed in our favour with the landlords too, knowing we weren't going to move on too quickly and would probably want an extension later.

Though it was let via an agent we are now dealing direct with the landlord and he's a great guy, very helpful and cool about us doing things in the house. Couldn't have done better I reckon!

Elaine