HOW TO: Find a shared flat in Sydney

By PR // 7 December 2009 // Comments: 0 // Related Categories: sydney, Traveller blog

If you are planning to stay in Sydney for a longer time, a shared flat is the best option for you. In Sydney it's very usual that young people who study or work share an apartment. The apartments are expensive if you want to live alone but if you share they are quite affordable. Usually the shared apartments are nicer and cheaper than hostels.

My search for a flat share started one month after my arrival in Sydney. I started searching on the websites www.gumtree.com.au and on www.flatmates.com.au . There were many ads on both sites so I thought that it would be easy to find a place. It didn't take me a long time to realise how wrong I was!

I contacted a lot of people who had posted ads on the websites but I soon noticed that many of them were probably just trying to trick me. One girl wanted me to pay the bond before I had even seen the apartment.  Another person gave me an address to Melbourne and claimed that his apartment was in Sydney. I also made many calls and the result was always the same: "Sorry, but the room is already taken".

 I learned that I shouldn't trust people too easily and that I shouldn't trust the pictures that people post of their apartments. One apartment that I went to look at looked really nice in the photos but the reality was quite different... Finally I decided that I shouldn't look at ads that are older than 7 days.

Then one day I saw an ad on gumtree that was posted just a few hours ago and I called the number on the ad. I got to go looking at the apartment the same day and I also decided to rent the room immediately after I had seen it. So after two months of looking for a room I finally found one. Now I live in Sydney CBD in an apartment with five nice girls from all over the world!