You have been evicted.... NOT!
On the night of 12 Feb 2007, Monday, we received the most unexpected shocking notification to date.
"Your lease will expire on 25/02/2007. Please arrange to have the current premise carpet cleaned and yourselves vacate by 25/02/2007".
Grounds of eviction: None.
We were stunned! To move within 2 weeks?! And to look for alternative accommodation in the currently very competitive rental market? That's almost like impossible!
So we contacted the site manager the next day to clarify and to ask if our lease could be extended as we did not have any intention to move. We had in fact mentally prepared for increase in rent again (the last one was 6 months ago...).
Then we started on a house hunting frenzy. We scour the internet, went to all of the rental agents around our area to get the rental list, drove around to look at shortlisted units after work, call and lodge our applications with tonnes of supporting documents only to receive the response of "Sorry, the rental property has been taken up". But it was only put onto the market the previous day! Within 24 hours, the good ones (big, cheap, close to public transport etc) have all been snapped up!
When we were about to lose hope, we received another notification. The site manager came around on the morning of 15 Feb 2007 and advise us that "you can stay here now...". Our lease has been extended! Yay! BUT the rent has been increased from $318 per week to $345 per week.
From our househunting, we have already gathered that the average rent rate for a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom and at least 1 lock-up garage property will cost an average of $330. The rental market has been increasing it's rate by more than 10% since the same period last year! This is due to the short supply of rental properties, the increasingly expensive properties reducing people's affordability to buy their own home and rendering them to the rental market, influx of approximately 300 migrants daily, not to mention the incoming 35,000 students who are about to start their new study semesters at various educational facilities.
What's more, to move house in AU requires huge amount of funds. You need to engage cleaners to clean the house and carpet before its return. This will set you back approximately $400. All the electricity, telephone lines, internet, pay TV (if any) - anything with connections needs to be disconnected and reconnected at the new place. This will set you back by another few hundred dollars... Rental of trucks to move stuff - a couple of hundreds. All in all, you will in approximatey $1k everytime you move. Hence, it is not economical to move every 6 months. (Not like SG, when you move, you move. At most you spend a few hundred bucks on everything. No exhorbitant fees were charge for disconnecting / reconnecting services. No carpet cleaning required.)
We thought that we would have to move house during CNY (we were all very upset and felt down because of the eviction. We had headache every night and the mood to celebrate CNY was immediately dispersed....). Fortunately, we won't have to move. We'll stay for another 6 months. And we've learned our lesson to search in the market a month before the expiration of our lease, prior to receiving any notification from the site manager....
Thank God! (Looks like the year of the golden pig starts off with "有惊无险" for us....Hopefully, everything will be smooth sailing from now on....)
Happy Chinese New Year everyone.... 恭喜发财，心想事成，身体健康，事事顺意！
On the night of 12 Feb 2007, Monday, we received the most unexpected shocking notification to date.
"Your lease will expire on 25/02/2007. Please arrange to have the current premise carpet cleaned and yourselves vacate by 25/02/2007".
Grounds of eviction: None.
We were stunned! To move within 2 weeks?! And to look for alternative accommodation in the currently very competitive rental market? That's almost like impossible!
So we contacted the site manager the next day to clarify and to ask if our lease could be extended as we did not have any intention to move. We had in fact mentally prepared for increase in rent again (the last one was 6 months ago...).
Then we started on a house hunting frenzy. We scour the internet, went to all of the rental agents around our area to get the rental list, drove around to look at shortlisted units after work, call and lodge our applications with tonnes of supporting documents only to receive the response of "Sorry, the rental property has been taken up". But it was only put onto the market the previous day! Within 24 hours, the good ones (big, cheap, close to public transport etc) have all been snapped up!
When we were about to lose hope, we received another notification. The site manager came around on the morning of 15 Feb 2007 and advise us that "you can stay here now...". Our lease has been extended! Yay! BUT the rent has been increased from $318 per week to $345 per week.
From our househunting, we have already gathered that the average rent rate for a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom and at least 1 lock-up garage property will cost an average of $330. The rental market has been increasing it's rate by more than 10% since the same period last year! This is due to the short supply of rental properties, the increasingly expensive properties reducing people's affordability to buy their own home and rendering them to the rental market, influx of approximately 300 migrants daily, not to mention the incoming 35,000 students who are about to start their new study semesters at various educational facilities.
What's more, to move house in AU requires huge amount of funds. You need to engage cleaners to clean the house and carpet before its return. This will set you back approximately $400. All the electricity, telephone lines, internet, pay TV (if any) - anything with connections needs to be disconnected and reconnected at the new place. This will set you back by another few hundred dollars... Rental of trucks to move stuff - a couple of hundreds. All in all, you will in approximatey $1k everytime you move. Hence, it is not economical to move every 6 months. (Not like SG, when you move, you move. At most you spend a few hundred bucks on everything. No exhorbitant fees were charge for disconnecting / reconnecting services. No carpet cleaning required.)
We thought that we would have to move house during CNY (we were all very upset and felt down because of the eviction. We had headache every night and the mood to celebrate CNY was immediately dispersed....). Fortunately, we won't have to move. We'll stay for another 6 months. And we've learned our lesson to search in the market a month before the expiration of our lease, prior to receiving any notification from the site manager....
Thank God! (Looks like the year of the golden pig starts off with "有惊无险" for us....Hopefully, everything will be smooth sailing from now on....)
Happy Chinese New Year everyone.... 恭喜发财，心想事成，身体健康，事事顺意！
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