Australia
After I arrived to Australia I had to learn a lot about how things work here. I started writing my guide about the things I learned hard way, while having this knowledge would saved me a lot. Now I have new problem: I forget almost everything I learn. So, some things I have to write down.
Rent
Australian government prevents development in residential areas with very rare exception (very suspicious). This severally limits supply, so rental prices are unreasonably high. One of the ways to reduce burden is sharing a unit, apartment or house. Then there is a problem finding flatmate. When I arrived Gumtree used to be solution, but now it is way more complex. Here are some options:
| Site name | Web address | Fees | My experience and opinion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gumtree | https://www.gumtree.com.au/ | Free. You can pay for promotion. | Used to be best option. It got attacked hard with fake accounts at the time when other sites were advertising heavily. Seems to be working fine now, but you may need to use some other options in addition to this one. |
| Facebook marketplace | https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/you/selling | Free. You can pay for promotion. | Not adjusted to Australia. Monthly fees instead of weekly. Not active, did not get any inspections yet. |
| Facebook groups | Too many to list | Free. | Might take some time, but I got a response just from few posts. |
| Roomster | https://roomster.com/account/listings/add | $17 - 7 days. | Got several inquiries in 2 days. |
| Flatmates | https://flatmates.com.au/ | $35 - 10 days. There might be some exception if flatmate just created account for few days. | At first glance seems that there were many people. However, when I started writing 95% do not reply. Month passed with no success. |
| Flatmate Finders | https://roomster.com/account/listings/add | $23 - 14 days. | A week - 0 messages. |
There were many more options to find flatmate, but as I already found one, I will research and write more about it, when I need to look again.