[Sydney] Finding an Accomodation

[TrillyTina]

Hello I was wondering if anyone will be willing to provide insight concerning their search for a permanent accommodation in the City? Umm I'm mainly concerned about the "Inner West" (close to Uni of Syd), maybe walking distance? I still have plenty of time to plan out the trip, but any insight would definitely help! (-points to self- Worry wart)
I know the cost of living and numerous students looking for accommodations around the period before the Semester starts up, will make the situation worse.. However is it feasible to be able to find a decent (single) room in an established shared flat with a budget (at maximum) of $160 AUD/week? If it's covering utilities and convenience of laundry accessibility.. how much does that round to approximately? Thanks!

Side note: I did poke around at a few shared accommodation sites, but quite a few postings were dubious and I've read on their forums that the amount of scammers on their free listing site is on the rise

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[shan564]

The cheapest way to do it is if you can talk to the university accommodation people. They own a few places near campus, but the rooms are small.

Also, check the university accommodation database. That's how I found my place. It's $200 a week, but it's right across the street from campus, it includes all utilities, and I have laundry/kitchen/etc. Plus, the room is a decent size.

$160 will be hard to do if you want to be near campus.

The real estate websites are helpful as a guide, but most of the time, there are way too many people looking at every apartment... so you end up putting in an application and getting rejected. You're more likely to find a place if you look at the private listings, like the accommodation database or gumtree (which also has a lot of spam, but it's usually pretty easy to tell the "too good to be true" stuff from the reasonable places).

 

[TrillyTina]

Thanks for response! I did see the Accommodation database, but I'll have to wait to submit and receive my CoE before I can access it I think (since it needs a ID key for access).

Guess I'll have to look further off campus then...

I did take a look through GumTree and EasyRoomate for an idea, but from the descriptions, it's hard to tell. However a few listings were dodgy. It seems like they were packing in like sardines.
A friend recommended the St. George area (which is further away), but it's quite far from the Camden campus. I have to take into consideration commuting to the Camden location should I have early need to attend courses in that part of the University. Oh I'm one of the veterinary science ones posting on this board by the way.. hence I need to consider Camden.

 

[Meddie83]

It is quite hard to find a place solely online. You really need to come to Sydney and conduct your search from there. If you are looking to live closer to Camden than the city you could probably find something for $160 in a sharehouse. But anywhere near to the main campus or the city will be extremely hard to find. I think Shan got lucky. $200 a week is the low end of what you will find in the Camperdown area.

 

[shan564]

Another thing to consider is that most people here don't usually sign leases more than a couple of weeks in advance. And usually, landlords won't even talk to you if you're not actually in the country.