Random Rants
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I've just been looking at the rental application form for one of the Australian letting agents. The information it asks for includes:
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Driving licence details
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The car you own
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Passport details
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Current and previous employment details
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Current and previous landlord, and whether your deposit / bond was refunded
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A business reference
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A personal reference
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A reference from a relative
I'm wanting to rent a place, not buy it. I didn't expect some sort of Spanish Inquisition!
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I can relate, but from a different angle: I own a house in Washington DC, which is now a rental property. Letting a house to a tenant in DC is tantamount to getting married, such are the laws so heavily weighted against landlords. As a DC landlord, if one makes a bad or incompletely informed decision about a tenant, he is literally stuck with that tenant for life.
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Here in Oz it's a short term contract, initially six to twelve months, and limited security for the tenant.
The local property market, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, is screwed up. There are a number of tax breaks for landlords that allow rental losses to be written off against salary (negative gearing), and a reduced rate for capital gains if an asset is held for over a year. That seems to be channelling significant amount of money into housing, which is pushing up prices. It's probably not going to end well.
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I've just been looking at the rental application form for one of the Australian letting agents. The information it asks for includes:
-
Driving licence details
-
The car you own
-
Passport details
-
Current and previous employment details
-
Current and previous landlord, and whether your deposit / bond was refunded
-
A business reference
-
A personal reference
-
A reference from a relative
I'm wanting to rent a place, not buy it. I didn't expect some sort of Spanish Inquisition!
it's pretty horrible. the last 3 places i've stayed in have been bro-deals - living with friends or partners. if i'm forced to get a place on my own in the future it'll be a real struggle w/o real landlord references
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"Gold, Jerry. Gold!"
@TrickHell:
@Bob:
Moving to Ireland? Good call, and also difficult. I have had friends who wanted to do the same but couldn't get a visa. Enjoy.
@TrickHell:
We thought we had a house in Ireland, but then the people in there decided to stay and their rent is government subsidized, so it's basically impossible to get them out.
Fawk.
It's not really the end of the world or anything. I just thought we had the last stressful part of our move sorted. House was a great deal, too, right on the water. Oh well. Shit happens.
My wife is an EU citizen, so it's significantly easier for me than most.
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I have found it most revealing to talk with not the last landlord, but the two previous landlords to that. The most recent landlord is sometimes trying to get rid of them (their current tenant) and a glowing reference is a step toward that.
@TrickHell:
I feel like references are the easiest part about getting an apartment. I mean, seriously, how will they know your last "landlord" is really just your mate talking about how great of a tenant you were?
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Are pole dancers in Poland simply known as 'dancers'?
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Fucking Parcelfarce.
Took the day off to wait in for the boots Jordan23 has sent me in lightning fast time, should have come today.
But no, the tracking shows them stuck in Newcastle ?
Why? Well apparently the postcode hasn't been written on correctly, SR8, not SK8
Well, mate, i am looking at a photo of the Parcel that was kindly forwarded by Jordan and it clearly says SK8 , notwithstanding the rest of the address has been written on perfectly, don't blame your incompetence on someone else.
Dickheads
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I've had enough and sorry if you are a proper Pole, but we are being hit continually by Polish spambots, or at least spambots with the .pl TLD
I got radical, if you try and register and you email addy has a TLD of .pl , you will be denied access…
I've had enough and sorry if you are a proper Equatorial Guinean, but we are being hit continually by Equatorial Guinean spambots, or at least spambots with the .eq TLD
I got radical, if you try and register and you email addy has a TLD of .eq, you will be denied access…
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The number of shit for brains texting and driving betrays ignorance of basic physics as in your shit box trying to enter
space already occupied by another shit box. -
I took a look at a place in a new development in Yarraville a fortnight ago. I posted a shot of the view from the roof terrace elsewhere.
I went along today for a second viewing, and the landlords have decided to put up prices by 20% or more because of demand. They're releasing properties onto the market in stages.
I'm a bit annoyed, as it felt like a good deal before, but now feels too expensive. So I'm out. I'm not the only one as a couple who were there were similarly annoyed.
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Thanks @Bob.
The property market in Australia is messed up by a combination of factors:
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Negative Gearing allows landlords to run a loss on a property, and deduct it against their overall income tax. Then there's a 50% discount on capital gains. The net result is that property investment becomes a speculative business that drives up real estate costs.
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There's a lot of (dodgy) money coming in from overseas, looking for a safe parking place. So the centre of Melbourne is full of dog box apartments built for this market. There was an outcry the other day when the government suggested putting minimal standards in place. (Such as one bedroom units being more than 50 m2 / 500 square feet, and having access to natural light.)
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That foreign money helps drive up prices too…
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On top of which valuations are north of where they were in the Dublin property bubble…
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And low interest rates encourage speculation, which feeds into property investment. Nearly half of all mortgages in Sydney are for rental properties!
The net result is that you've got the older generation who've benefited from a tripling of prices since the late nineties, and they're out-competing their children in buying up what would be starter homes.
Plus the tax system doesn't provide incentives for updating properties, so you see places with kitchens that look like they've been untouched since the seventies or eighties! :o
Overall, I'm not having fun!
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Mate it's giving me the shits too. I don't want to be the sucker buying at the top of the bubble, so get stuck playing pass-the-parcel in the rent game paying off some other chump's loan, whilst he's negative gearing it on the way through… Can't win in the current market.
Prices near my parents have DOUBLED in less than 10 years. DOUBLED. AND CPI is less than 3%! WHACKY!
