Young couple renting in Melbourne

Hi,

We just moved to Melbourne a couple of weeks ago and found a rental place in Prahran. South Yarra and Prahran are closer to the CBD than Port Melbourne. Port Melbourne is less city style living and more a beach live, but a lot of young professionals live there. South Yarra is the more expensive part. But if you like parks, coffe bars, restaurants and a lot of shops Prahran/ South Yarra and St Kilda would be a better option than Port Melbourne. St Kilda is closer to the beach.
We found that finding a nice rental apartment in Melbourne is not easy and not cheap. And almost all of the rental places are managed by real estate agents. So the fastes way to found a house would be to visit real estate agents and visit the internet on realestate.com.au or domain.com.au
At first we were looking for a furnished apartment,but this is really expensive so we decided on an unfurnished apartment.
Hope this helps!

Hello, I'm going to be in a similar situation.

I have a job offer of 6 months with a view to longer term sponsorship and my girlfriend and I are coming out in early May.

Initially I'm looking at serviced apartments for maybe three months to get settled and then looking for somewhere to rent. With only a suitcase of clothes to bring we're kind of wondering how people start renting (as most places seem unfurnished).

Its easy enough to rent but when you move in you've not got a bed or anywhere to sit? Also there are no guarantees how long we'll be in Australia so we'd be reluctant to buy too much furniture.

Anyone been in a similar situation?

check out Docklands- it is an up and coming area, so rent can be fairly inexpensive, but it's still right in the city and next to the water

hello. I am a young man from Ukraine. I want to move to Australia. Could you please help me. Give some information how to do that...thanks!

For northern inner-city neighborhoods based on your brief profile I would identify Fitzroy, Carlton and perhaps Northcote/Clifton Hill as interesting areas.  Most neighborhoods just south of the city (South Yarra, Prahan, South Melbourne, St. Kilda etc) are interesting too.  Parts of St. Kilda have a lot of backpackers which could be good or bad.  Generally inner-north is bohemian/younger and inner-south is more affluent/older (apart from parts of St. Kilda).  That's a huge generalization though because every neighborhood is really different.

Finding a place through an estate agent can be difficult, especially now because there is a shortage of rental properties, but realestate.com.au and domain.com.au are the main sites for that.

There are some professional short-term house-share companies, but none I can recommend because they charge through the nose.  You have to be careful too because the corporate house-shares are covered under "hotel" laws and therefore regular Victorian tenant act doesn't apply to them.  I've heard really bad things about a lot of smaller house-shares.

Best to room with a private owner for a few months in the area you are thinking of living in.  Can find potential shares on http://gumtree.com.au, along with hundreds of other sites.

Once in the area start applying through estate agents who will require you to attend property inspections at inconvenient times and submit long detailed application forms.  Get organised early because you'll likely submit dozens of application forms.  Having a secure job and local references will get you into the "potential" pile for many estate agents.

That was a lot of random info.  Hope it helps though.

Cheers,
Ian