The current market is the most challenging it’s been. Winter is typically a great time for renters, with lower rents and plenty of stock on the market. Not so this year! Yes, there’s slightly more stock, but the rents are still high! We are also finding there are more tenants looking compared with normal, we think because people relayed their moves in the Summer months, hoping for better luck in Winter.

Julie and Matt have two young children (twins, aged 6), a pet dog (27kg, living indoors and outdoors) and a cat. They are relocating to Sydney to complete a medical fellowship (Matt) while Julie is currently interviewing for GP roles. Thankfully, both have obtained their medical registration, but they’re yet to enroll their children into school as this will depend on their actual address, and whilst they have a rough idea of what they want in their home and local area and have a fixed budget in mind, they’re actually really stuck on where they’ll be able to live to meet their property requirements and budget. So you can see, we have a circular process to navigate to ensure that budget, requirements and timing are aligned and realistic, before we can even embark on a rental search.

We also have some issues to address with their application. You see, medical fellowships are not paid at the higher rates that specialist doctors achieve, and Julie will only be working part-time, but she’s yet to secure any work. As it currently stands, their application is not competitive and may not support them to rent anywhere within Sydney within their budget. We need to fix that.

It was such a relief to know that we’d engaged Melissa. Immediately we felt relief and that we had someone in our corner who knew how to help.

Julie and Matt gave good thought to their wants and needs and sent through their brief which we looked at in detail to refine, clarify and align. Initially, Julie wanted to live near the coast, but with Matt’s work in Penrith, that would have created a very long commute. Not being from Sydney, they didn’t appreciate just how long that commute would be. We also needed to work on property size and amenities to accommodate two children who would need some space to play and do school work, and a larger yard for their dog. So, we had some work to do together to clarify and refine the brief. Next step was a feasibility study to make sure that what we had in mind would actually work in the market.

I had no idea just how difficult Sydney was! At every turn, it felt like an impossibility. Melissa was so good at guiding us and offering suggestions of things we didn’t even consider. We thought a garden would be in all houses. We didn’t know, for example, that sometimes in the Inner West, the car parking is actually the space in the back yard! We didn’t know distances and how to commute and what the schools were like. Melissa’s expertise was on-point.

Armed with a brief that was well aligned with the market and a refined application that I was sure would get them across the line, I was ready to embark on property research. I used my tried-and-tested approach which project-manages all aspects of the rental search and predictably, identified 19 homes that met the mark. I presented them to Julie and Matt who were blown away to have so many good options to choose from.

All we’d heard was doom and gloom stories about renting in Sydney. Actually, I was secretly worried that we wouldn’t find anything, and that we would return home, out-of-pocket and needing to almost start again with our lives back home. I was skeptical at first when I started working with Melissa because the service sounded too good to be true, but then I saw how much time she takes to thoroughly go through everything - I began to feel confident, but when that shortlist came through, wow!

I inspected three homes for Julie and Matt and all were suitable. They really loved two of the homes, applied for both and got accepted for both …. at 10.59am and 11.11am on Monday morning! They of course choose their favourite and the rest is history. They arrived from the UK with a home waiting for them to move into. They avoided the cost of short-term accommodation. They had a known address prior to moving which helped them to choose a school and enroll their daughters. Julie could target the medical centres in the local area, now that she knew where she’d be living. Furniture could be ordered with a delivery address and arrival date. It all came together.

But it could have been very different.

They could have ended up with a property that was very far from Matt’s work place.

They may have struggled to secure a home without inspecting, as they were overseas.

Their original application would have likely failed - we made a lot of helpful suggestions to improve it and clearly, it worked.

The cost of short-term accommodation - not to mention a second move - would have increased their costs significantly.

They saved time and stress.

All for one low fee.

Thank you so much for all your hard work and effort! This has been an absolutely fantastic experience for our whole family - we’ve already recommended you to others. I loved how simple and easy it was - we didn’t waste time on areas that wouldn’t have been right for us, or homes that ere unsuitable. To simply get a shortlist, choose the homes and then get inspection summaries and photos to review when we woke up was just amazing! Thanks for your extremely quick responses, and the very high level of communication. Absolutely fantastic service!