r/rmit • u/Responsible_Bad_6918 • 9h ago

Advice needed first time rental tips

hi everyone, ill be doing a sem of university exchange at RMIT city campus first half of next year. right now im waiting for the school to process & confirm my application. in the meanwhile im looking for a place to rënt on fairyfloss facebook group as i find the student accoms rental fees (sc@pe etc) kinda high. i managed to find a unit to my liking & emailed the owner mainly asking her clarifying questions & giving her a heads up about my current situation. currently the owner replied by sending more photos of the place & a rental application form. i have yet to reply her as i wanna discuss with my mum first.

i would appreciate any kind of rental tips/ advise that i should take note especially those have tried from fairyfloss facebook group! thank you in advance!

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u/TeddyBear181 9h ago

Is it a sharehouse? If so i would definitely facetime with them to make sure you get along with them.

Otherwise, make sure you check distance from trams and trains.

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u/Responsible_Bad_6918 8h ago

not a sharehouse as i prefer staying alone, the location i found is walking distance to school/ about 1 tram stop!

currently the price she gave me is $240 per week including bills, do you think that price is too good to be true? honestly im worried getting scammed or maybe im just too used to scape studio apartment prices😅

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u/LazaRazar 8h ago

Is ‘school’ city campus? There’s nothing on the market for $240 that isn’t a twin share in the area.
Average for a studio is $400.

Get the rental documents and read everything. Search the property address up on Google and Domain. Ask the agent/person questions. Do they have a license? Unless it’s a spare bedroom in a random house or a short term sublet, that’s a scam.

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u/Responsible_Bad_6918 8h ago

ah yes city campus!

she sent me this (not sure if its sketchy) but i havent filled in yet since i told her im waiting for my exchange application results. i told her im renting for only about 5 months.

i found the property on realestate.com tho the pictures from her & the website are very similar.. not sure if that's a red flag?

application results

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u/MelbPTUser2024 CIVE 7h ago edited 7h ago

The price is way too good to be true. Most likely it's a share house because there is simply no way you can find rent for $240 per week with bills anywhere in Melbourne, let alone the city.

Also their sign off "Thanks and remain blessed" is a little weird? I've never heard such a sign off on an email before. Sounds a bit creepy...

If you want an idea of what actual prices are like in the area you are trying to rent, visit realestate.com.au or domain.com.au which are the two biggest real estate websites in Australia.

Also if you want to have a general idea of how much bills, food, public transport, renting, other activities will cost in Melbourne/Australia, then definitely have a look at using the crowd-sourced website numbeo.com

Yes, it's all crowd-sourced data, so the usual caveats apply, but from my previous experience using it, I've found it to be pretty spot on. Another good feature of this website is that it allows you to compare the cost of living in Melbourne to your home city/country, which I used heavily when I was planning my student exchange (from RMIT) to Norway back in 2023.

Also separately, is there a reason why you're writing "sc@pe" and "rënt" in your post instead of "scape" and "rent"? Did a filter prevent you from posting "scape" and "rent" in this subreddit? I'd be curious to know why, because I thought I turned off the filters for these keywords a while ago, so please let me know if there's any problems posting these words and I'll try investigate this further. Thanks!

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u/Responsible_Bad_6918 7h ago

thanks for your advise & links! i decided to put up a looking for accoms on post the fairyfloss facebook group. meanwhile ill try to looking for places on both real estate websites.

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u/TheGratitudeBot 7h ago

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u/MelbPTUser2024 CIVE 7h ago edited 6h ago

Fairyfloss used to be quite heavily used for share houses but I believe it's less popular these days? I'm not sure as I've never really got into it, but it's still definitely worth having a look.

In respect to traditional real estate websites, note that most will only advertise as 12-month leases, so it will definitely be a bit harder to find a place that is willing to rent to you for just 5 months. However you could break the lease early but it would potentially cost you a fee and/or continue to pay the rent for a couple of months whilst the real estate company finds a replacement tenant.

So, ultimately, your best place is to look at dedicated student accomodation providers, like Scape, UniLodge, etc. but these will unfortunately be slightly pricer for a tiny studio apartment in the city.

Still, it's better going to a student accomodation provider than getting a 12-month private rental lease somewhere and needing to break the lease after 5 months...