Where to stay when Immigrating to Sydney

Hi,

well almost everyone immigrating to Australia needs a place to stay for a short period or short stay. It leads on from this to say that almost everyone would then be looking for cheap or reasonable accommodation rental prices. I don't want to put anyone off, but Sydney is a huge tourist destination. They actually have a shortage of long term rentals! - so you may as well just resign yourself to it being pricey! It will save you time in the end.

Sydney Hotels

There are various hotels in Sydney and Greater Sydney, which normally cost a minimum of 700 - 1500 a week! ouch). The Greater Sydney area has numerous Hotels and resorts but they are all pricey. Don't even waste your time scouring for something cheap hotel wise - it aint gonna happen!

There are a few backpacker hotels, but these involve dodgy characters, room sharing, bathroom sharing and kitchen sharing... hmm only for the young and hardy?

Furnished Short term apartment or flats

There are a few companies that manage blocks of flats with serviced apartments, but these are usually well booked in advance. A two or three bedroom flat that is furnished will set you back from about $750.00 to $1300.00 per week. Believe me, I looked! These are normally situated near the larger cities and suburbs in the Greater Sydney area. These are good for people who are on a look see and need easy access to transport etc.
Sydney short term Accommodation.

You can find short term Sydney accommodation such as rooms to rent, flat shares etc. if you know where to look.

Gumtree Australia has a lot of people advertising for room-mates. This will set you back from $150 to 400 a week which is more reasonable than the hotels. Please watch out for con artists though.

There are various websites dedicated to shared accommodation etc in Sydney and Australia. They are useful, but they are watched continuously by scam artists, who try to get scan of your passports, your address details and so on. You will even get a whole montage apartment in pictures sent to you. These people must be dummies as they advertise flats with pool rooms combined with 2 metre square images. I once even googled the image names and found some of the "advertised" rooms and lounges on google images where they had copied them from.... You have been WARNED!

Cheaper accommodation - Further out from Sydney - makes it slightly cheaper.

If you need a cheaper long term rental you can try renting in a rough neighbourhood or you can stay about one to two hours travel out of Sydney. This does reduce the costs, but you are effected by travel limitations. If you are planning on exploring Sydney or its suburbs and you are one hour South, it will logically take you an hour before you even hit North Sydney in order to explore. I am talking Car travel here.

Sydney is the largest City in Australia and it will tale anyone immigrating to Sydney at least six months to a year to partially figure out where everything is.

In terms of driving Sydney is one hour north and South, and at least 2 hours West. Its huge!

Don't get me wrong its definitely not all CBD as Sydney is quite small with some satellite CBD's like Parramatta. The Suburbs just seem to be endless.

You might want to look at a few of my earlier posts about Scotland Island, Sydney which is cheaper, but has some cons in terms of easy access.
Alternatives.

Try house sitting - I have seen a number of adverts for house sitters,

Join a few immigrating to Australia forums and advertise the fact you are looking for somewhere to stay - you might find a family who are going home on holiday from Australia who need someone to look after their house or flat and maybe make some cash at the same time.

Good luck on finding your cheap accommodation in Sydney Folks. Or, if you have accommodation to list, let me know - I'll put it up here :)

Later you'all

How I got my visa, Life, Lumps and spirit, Hate your new country? Your not alone! A good Furniture Rental company in Sydney,Why do immigrants leave Australia?, Sydney - Scotland island - hidden gem, Malls in Sydney, Living in St Ives, Arriving in Sydney, Driving through Sydney - first day, How expensive is Sydney

There is a shortage of senior java programmers in Sydney

Well, thought I would comment on the state of the IT market in in Sydney, and in particular the Java programming market.

My Large Bank has about 20 -30 open positions - no candidates. I am currently looking for a Senior Java developer with Direct Market Access and or FIX Protocol experience. Hmm no luck.

We have put the brief out to five agencies, dumbed down the spec to just Senior Java developer and have only received ONE CV in two weeks.

The global recession seems to have passed java developer by....

We are now searching globally for people----and can organize a visa for the right people.

Apparently there is only a small core of senior java developers in Banking in Sydney, with an even smaller core of people that know the FIX protocol (something like less than 20).

Man, if I had know this a year ago.

If your looking... contact me - serious contenders only, bright sparks. I work in a high class Bank capiche?

Later people. 


How I got my visa, Life, Lumps and spirit, Hate your new country? Your not alone! A good Furniture Rental company in Sydney,Why do immigrants leave Australia?, Sydney - Scotland island - hidden gem, Malls in Sydney, Living in St Ives, Arriving in Sydney, Driving through Sydney - first day, How expensive is Sydney

Getting a cell or mobile phone in Sydney - my experiences

Vodafone

First off, on arrival at the airport I purchased a Sim plus airtime pack in the airport lobby from some reseller.

It did not work - $33.00 gone. Was informed by Vodafone that this happens and it would be easier to buy a new one - "only $2.00" she said. Well, $10 later plus airtime purchase, plus half an hour of form filling I had a prepaid from a Vodafone shop. Meh - not really impressed so far.

But, I now can't buy prepaid time online as my credit card is already registered to the other one. "phone 1555" they helpfully put on the website where you get one irritating virtual person called "Lara", who tries to ask you questions and after 5-10 minute of to-ing and fro-ing puts you through to an operator, which then informs you of office hours (of course as all hardworking, busy people want to faff on the phone (with dumb Lara) during work hours right?... WRONG!)

I had prepaid data with usb modem from them too, same hassles - cant recharge online, their vodafone websites does not really work and on the northern line only about 50% of the line has coverage from Gordon to Sydney - quite slow too.

Crazy Johns - really really suck!

Where do I start? Totally unhappy with them. Bought a 24 month contract with them as it was a phone plus modem package (for my laptop). Well they assured me it was through vodafone anyway and the modem speeds would be the same. Guess what? Its not. Less coverage, slower and very bad software surrounding it. It always took twice as long as the Vodafone software to get me online. meh. Looks like old windows 95 type software too!

Ok so I have a 24 month contract right? I also have a vodafone prepaid. So I phone vodafone to get he prepaid number onto the Crazy John contract as its the number everyone knows.. they say - "no problem" - phone Crazy Johns (but wait,  they are both vodafone - oh well no problem). I'll phone Crazy.. (oh yeah forgot to mention the Lara and the Crazy automated hell before the operator finally).

Ok I explain to the operator what I want, who then says "um we cant do this - you could do it when you started but not now". Well I want to know what the difference is - "policy" is the reply. Hmm not happy - you have lost a customer.

I then get the following helpful options. "You can get another prepaid with us, sir, it wont be the same number though?" ..... "Huh, I already have one lady...... gnnnn"

ok,

"What about buying another contract" she says, "then we can use your old number"... wtf pay another 24 months on top of that? "I'm just helping you sir" -------- gnnnn "click"

Crazy Johns - you have lost a customer. Your policies are stupid and your customer support is not too bright.

Oh also, Crazy Johns website offers credit credit cards payment - also does not work online - also a phone run a round until you get told to phone Mon - Friday during office hours. MEH this feels like 10 year old service. The long and short - I have to phone them to pay via credit card.

Anyway sorry about the rant everyone..
be warned.

How I got my visa, Life, Lumps and spirit, Hate your new country? Your not alone! A good Furniture Rental company in Sydney,Why do immigrants leave Australia?, Sydney - Scotland island - hidden gem, Malls in Sydney, Living in St Ives, Arriving in Sydney, Driving through Sydney - first day, How expensive is Sydney

Reporting in from somewhere near the South Pole well, actually Sydney, Australia.

Its cold here in Sydney, very cold(its winter). Australia is not cold enough for indoor heating in the houses so you just buy heaters to warm the house and basically freeze your ass off. Be careful of renting large multi-level wooden houses with lots of glass...They are COLD in winter and frikkin sauna's in summer. You may as well go outside and put the heater on...

My immune system is down and its a dog to get up in the morning as its nippy. hmm.. Pity the puppy! Sleeping in the washroom. Must have been quite a shock for it to learn to sleep away from its warm clan. But hey, where-else do you put the little poopers?

No-one told me when I moved to Sydney that it would be so cold here. I guess, like most outsiders, we see Australia as warm and toasty.

Well its not really cold to nature I guess, we are in July and there are trees with flowers(heavens knows why - its freezing). We found a lemon tree in our garden, with ONE massive lemon. One, whats up with that?

The birds are back - especially the Kookaburra's and also the parrots. Can't imagine why I used to moan at the whining puppy. The parrots are worse than cocks(the chicken species). On the plus side the puppy is only whining from 6:15 in the morning...

The winter rain has brought in a rasher of car accidents - note too self, never, ever, live in a house that is on the outside bend at the bottom of a long hill. Seriously, about 25 accidents in 6 months and all when it rains. All slipping off the road and losing wheels, axels, hubcaps, licence points and money. Geez people, its says SIXTY, "danger", "slippery when wet", what more do you want. I am really tired of cleaning the grass and dirt off of my driveway every time. And my neigbour is quite tired of having cars removed from his front lawn!

I also believe Australia is way behind South Africa on enforcing cell phones in car rules. I have seen so many people careering along talking openly on their mobiles... Quite a surprize as Australia is so strict on its speed limits.

Did I mention its cold? - and dark by 5:30! oh well summer will come one day but as they say in South Africa - I am now "gatvol" of winter (had enough)

later peeps

Our journey to Australia

I was asked in a recent comment about my journey to Australia and decided to raise it to a proper blog post.

Hi,

we left South africa Originally to go the USA as we felt it had a lot of racism (as we are a mixed couple). Also we felt we had a better future in country with less internal problems etc. We came back from the USA as we were taken over on a visa which only allowed us to work at one company for three years and the salary was quite low - so we struggled and on top of that we missed home very much. it was the first time we left South Africa and it was the hardest. When we got back to South Africa we were there for three years and the old problems cropped up. The south African economy was crashing a bit due to various factors. The interest rates went up to about 19% at one stage and I watched the price of things in the shops double in about 2 Months. - My mortgage more than doubled in about 3 4 months. This and various other factors made us look to find a better future elsewhere. The only place I could go was the UK. We spent 5 years there and it was a shock to us as the UK was definitely very strange in many ways. The culture, the cold weather, the lack of warmth and sunlight. We were then able to get a australian visa which came through at about the time of the global credit crunch and as I was a contractor and on a visa which gives no support I had to find work elsewhere. Believe me I tried hard to get work in the UK, but at the time the market was flooded with several thousand out of work computer professionals. It was like a door closed and a door opened in Australia. This is a greatly simplified version but really we could and we did.


hope this helps a bit?

I think australia has less help for its citizens than the UK on the whole. ATM the UK feels like home. Australia is too expensive for me. If you are both working, willing to live cheap then you will make it in Australia. The UK is in a recession atm, Australia is not. I cant comment on New Zealand apart from the fact I like the the few New Zealanders I have met so far.

I have met people here from Europe who work as drivers etc and they complain bitterly and in fact relate the same stories as every where else - if you are a labourer your life sucks :)


Anyway hope that helps?

If you  go somewhere it will take 5 years minimum for it to become home.

Or go somewhere really light -take little get a job and have the mindseet that you are trying it out - so you can go home with feeling like your trip has failed. moving coutnry is ok for some, others its not.

How I got my visa, Life, Lumps and spirit, Hate your new country? Your not alone! A good Furniture Rental company in Sydney,Why do immigrants leave Australia?, Sydney - Scotland island - hidden gem, Malls in Sydney, Living in St Ives, Arriving in Sydney, Driving through Sydney - first day, How expensive is Sydney

Cheap medical costs in Australia - what a nice surprise for a change

Well my son did something to his foot and ended up limping around for weeks.

We took him to a foot specialist on a Saturday(take note UK), expecting to pay through the roof. He only charged us $20 over the medicare limit. Sent us for x-rays (the place was modern and in line with private hospitals), which were charged on the medicare rate.(so free).

Holy crap, all I needed to pay was 20 dollars for the whole morning!

Where I come from you pay for everything as there is not government medical aid so its quite a nice surprise.

later peeps


How I got my visa, Life, Lumps and spirit, Hate your new country? Your not alone! A good Furniture Rental company in Sydney,Why do immigrants leave Australia?, Sydney - Scotland island - hidden gem, Malls in Sydney, Living in St Ives, Arriving in Sydney, Driving through Sydney - first day, How expensive is Sydney

Australian medicare - easy easy

Hi all,


Well, we finally got listed on medicare. We found it really easy. Just go to your nearest medicare office with your forms filled in. (damn dog keeps licking my fingers,how am I supposed to type?)

Anyway, make sure you bring the proofs of address and identity and so on with you, your valid passports (you cant do them with expired passports).

You also need to bring everyone with you (ie your spouse and kids if you have them).

Its quick and its free. I was shocked because everytime I go anywher near anything in Australia it costs money..

The cards came in the post a week later and sorted.

Now to find all those old doctors bills for claiming. Wohoo money back!!!

later peeps

How I got my visa, Life, Lumps and spirit, Hate your new country? Your not alone! A good Furniture Rental company in Sydney,Why do immigrants leave Australia?, Sydney - Scotland island - hidden gem, Malls in Sydney, Living in St Ives, Arriving in Sydney, Driving through Sydney - first day, How expensive is Sydney