Housing Crisis

Let me preface this by stating that the rental housing market in Perth is terrible.  By terrible I mean:


-the prices are outrageous
-the houses are generally either run down pieces of crap or executive mansions
-there is a tonne of competition even for the run down pieces of crap
-for the privilege to view a house you have to practically beg the realtor, more often than not a 25 year fresh out of their parents basement, who, if they are inclined to return your call, may set up a viewing between the hours of 11am-3:30pm Monday to Friday
-when setting up the viewing you generally have 15 minutes to look at the house and then get out, sometimes even less (there was one 'home open' from 4:35-4:40)

So, when I say terrible I mean ridiculous, overpriced, frustrating and generally a rip-off.

You may be asking, "but why are you having to move in the first place?"  Good question although it's really none of your business and frankly, a little rude.  The house we are currently in is okay.  The living space isn't very good, the outdoor space is essentially useless (albeit beautiful), it's freezing in the winter and it's costs a lot more than it's worth.  We basically took it because the market was so bad at the time.  Little did we know...

So, about a month or so ago we starting looking for a new rental property to live in.  The criteria was that it had to be within relatively easy access to the kids school, have 4 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, preferably a pool and, of course, within our price range.  There are two pretty good websites in Perth that are generally updated in a timely manner.  We were scouring those websites every day and sometimes several times a day to see what was available on the market.  There were actually quite a few decent properties listed and we went to see a few of them.  However, almost all of them were available immediately.  Because our lease doesn't expire until Nov.1, if we found a place we would likely have to pay for two rents for a few weeks.  One is bad enough but two means we don't eat for a few weeks. 

The good news was that every week there were some decent properties coming on the market.  There were even a couple very nice ones that we were interested in that had been sitting available for a couple of weeks.  So, we thought that we would be okay.  We were mistaken.

When we came back from our recent trip to Dunsborough we began to ramp up our level of house hunting activities.  Then, last Tuesday October 16 Nadia went to the American Women's Club coffee party.  While there she just happened to meet a Canadian lady who just happened to be trying to find someone to take over her rent in what happened to be our favorite neighborhood.  Surely, this was fate.  That night we went to see their home.  It was a beautiful, huge, 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom home complete with salt-water pool, a pool table, a 5 minute walk to the train station and a 10 minute walk to the school.  The only problem was that it was at the very top of our price range.  Regardless, we thought that we couldn't pass up the opportunity and told them that we'd take it.  They contacted the owner who insisted that it all be done by the realtor.  In the meantime, we had a plan B property in mind that was quite nice.  This past Monday the current tenants called us and said that there might be a snag.  The owners are considering putting it on the market at a higher rate.  We told them if that was the case that we weren't interested and we proceeded to put in an offer on the plan B house.  The day we put in our offer was the day someone elses offer, put in previously, was accepted.  Apparently, there were 9 offers on the property!  And as it turns out that was the week that there were no new properties coming on the market.  Every other week there were some decent options but they were all available 'now' so we couldn't really consider them.  Then we were told that the owners of the property where the Canadian family lived were considering our offer.  There was hope. However, that week the internet completely dried up of any new houses.  The week we needed there to be some decent listings there were none.

So, the prospect of homelessness was staring us in the face like a drunk hobo screaming "get out of my cardboard box!"  We began frantically looking for:

-short term temporary accomodation
-rental facility for our furniture, etc.
-a moving truck big enough for 5 people to live in

Then on Thursday of this week (keep in mind we are moving out on Thursday, Nov.1) a couple new properties came on the market.  We arranged a viewing that day at one of them and put in an offer a couple of hours later.  We were told that we were the first to see the home and therefore we surmised that we were also likely the first to put in an offer.  The only caveat on the home is that it was listed as being available on Nov.2 while we needed it Nov.1, but the realtor said that that might be an option.  So, yesterday (Friday) I called to check on the status of our application and I discovered that there were two other applicants and they were going through all of the details and references in the application.  The soonest we'll know about the property is on Monday, Oct.29 aka t-minus 3 days before homelessness.  At the moment we are completely helpless.  To make matters worse, we were informed that the owners of the property where the Canadians are living decided to put it up for sale, so renting it was no longer an option. Now that it's Saturday here we can't even go look at other properties because the realtors are at the beach working on their tans on the weekends.  I'm fairly certain that they get their realtor licenses at the bottom of a box of breakfast cereal.

I repeat: the rental market here is ridiculous, overpriced, frustrating and generally a rip-off.

So, the worst case scenario is that we aren't afforded the privilege of paying $850 per week to live in a less-than-ideal home.  In which case, unless a miracle property appears out of nowhere, we will be looking for temporary accommodation, storing our goods, and experiencing additional frustrations with this rental market while working full-time and trying to squeeze in a home viewing whenever possible.

The one thing that is certain: we will not be living in our current address after Nov.1.  Regardless of what happens, we will have very limited internet access for a certain period of time (hooray, another relatively simple task that becomes a crappy frustrating protocol we have to jump hoops through to accomplish!)  Ugh.

Regards,

The Klamers of no fixed address

Heading South

During our time in Perth we've haven't been able to do to much travelling.  We managed to go to the Gold Coast (Brisbane) for a week but, otherwise, all of our travelling has been within driving distance.  We've taken a couple of day trips east but nothing too substantial.  Most of our travelling has been to the north of Perth, including our fabulous trip to Kalbarri.  However, recently we managed to finally head to the primary Perthite getaway spot: the Margaret River region about 2-3 hours car drive south of Perth.

The 'Margaret River region' is basically the southwestern tip of the country.  The next closest piece of land is Antarctica.  It is a well known, well used vacation spot for people around Australia but particularly for people from Perth due to its proximity to the city.  The region consists primarily of the towns of Margaret River, Bunbury, Busselton and Dunsborough.  It is best known for two things: wine and whales.  This region is the pre-eminent wine growing region in West Australia and is only overshadowed in it's wines and wineries by the state of South Australia.  However, one thing South Australia doesn't have are the whales.  Every year both Humpbacks and Southern Right whales travel along what is referred to as the "Humpback Highway": from their summer feeding grounds in Antartica to their winter birthing/mating area in northern West Australian.  As a result, basically every Humpback and Southern Right whale on the planet pass along the West Australian coast twice a year.  They actually travel right by Perth but usually they tend to be further off shore and therefore are a lot harder to spot, although just this week there was a Humpback at Fremantle- Perth's primary commercial port.

The Margaret River region tends to have slightly more temperate weather than Perth even though it's only a 3 hour drive south. The winters are cooler, wetter and windier and the summers are basically perfect, without the blistering heat that Perth occasionally receives.  Our visit took place in spring, so while we managed to avoid the massive crowds (think Banff on a nice summer day) we also were taking a chance with the weather.

Here's a rundown of some of our activities along with visual aids:

 This is the lighthouse region of the area.  It is a big, natural area surrounding the lighthouse, on top of a cliff overlooking the ocean.  Even looking out from here we spotted a few whales, albeit from a distance.

 

 We spent a lot of time exploring the coast and discovered some really lovely areas.  This particular area is a beautiful protected cove.  Just outside the cove is a very popular Hammerhead Shark hang-out.

 

 The region has a lot of caves.  We managed to go to one of them.  Here the kids and Nadia are looking up at the stalactites on the ceiling...

 

 ...and this is their view of the ceiling.  This particular cave was quite large and extensive and took us over an hour to go through.

 Here we are setting off on a 2 hour tour (a two hour tour) to go whale watching.  We were picked up from the jetty behind me and brought onto the boat.  On this particular day it was raining and windy.  As a result, the seas were choppy and pretty rough.  Despite the less-than-ideal weather, the ship was full of whale watching land-lubbers.

 

 It's relatively difficult to hold onto the ship for dear life, protect your face from the driving, stinging rain, try to avoid puking and get a picture of an animal that spends about 1 second of every 3-4 minutes of it's life at the surface of the water.  I managed to get one semi-decent picture.  Here you can see two Humpbacks swimming together.  We were fortunate enough to see one whale do a full breach (jump out of the water) but everyone on board was so sea-sick they didn't care all that much.  I'd estimate that 75% of the passengers got sick on this trip.  I'm proud to say that only 2 out of 5 Klamers got sick, beating the boat average by quite a significant margin.  It was a fun experience, however, it could have been a lot better with the right conditions.  Even the captain of the ship, as we were boarding, querried "you didn't want to go to the caves today?"  By the end of the journey we were cold, wet, tired, sick and generally beaten up.  At that particular point I understood why whaling was such a thriving industry at one point:  all the whalers were so miserable they needed to kill something out of frustration.

 

 Continuing to explore the coastline.  There were some really beautiful spots for swimming, snorkelling, fishing or just lounging on the beach.  Unfortunately, the weather didn't really cooperate with us to allow to do any of those things.

 

 Some more exploring.  Cyrus on the cliffs.

 

 The region is general is very picturesque.  It has green rolling hills surrounded by forrest, country roads and wineries.  Also, most of the wild flowers are currently in bloom.  There are wild, white lillies everywhere.  Above you can barely see a common Aussie sight: sheep.

 

One of the area's claim to fame is the Busselton jetty.  Above you can see the jetty from the shore stretching to the center-right of the picture.  This is actually the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere and you can actually see it from space, or so I've been told.  It is about two kilometers long and at the end of the jetty is an underwater viewing area.  To get to the end you can either take the train that runs along the length of the jetty or walk.  We chose to walk.  Unfortunately, due to the weather conditions the underwater viewing area was closed.  And yet again, we were left cold, wet and tired.

 

The area in general is very nice.  In the height of summer it would likely be fantastic.  The trade off, however, are the very large crowds.  We certainly enjoyed the trip.  Hopefully, next time we will get to experience all of the things we didn't get a chance to do on this trip.

 

The Royal Show

Every year there's a festival organized that's called "The Perth Royal Show".  It's like a fair complete with a midway, rides, mini-donuts, dog/cow/cat displays, inappropriate t-shirts and abnoxious crowds.  On Saturday Zaren and Cyrus went with their friends.  On Sunday, Nadia and I brought Keva and her friend and went our seperate ways.  We stayed as long as we could before we left the girls there and went to a beach cafe.

 

People wandering aimlessly through the crowd without any direction or purpose and a little nauseous from the combination of rides and junk food.  It's like the zombie apocalypse with a carnival soundtrack.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Speaking of royalty, the AFL (Australian Football League) season is over and a champion has been crowned.  The AFL is the big sport in Australia and the "Grand Finals" are a little like their Superbowl/Stanley Cup.  This year the Sydney Swans upset the Hawthorne Hawks in the final to capture a trophy with a name that is unknown to me.  Actually, as far as Aussie sports go AFL is pretty good.  I actually had a chance to go to a game this year but, unfortunately, we were away during the time that I was invited.  Maybe next year.  Both teams based in Perth, the West Coast Eagles and Fremantle Dockers, made the playoffs.  So, that was a nice change for us.

 

Now that the season is over all sporting eyes shift to Cricket.  Ugh.  I think Monty Python summed up the sport best (complete with Italian sub-titles):

 



My apologies to anyone out there that loves cricket, but really it has to be the most ridiculous sport ever invented.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The school term is over and the kids now have two weeks off of school before they begin the last term of the year.  The weather is also starting to change.  Spring has sprung.  Today in Perth it will be in the mid 30's.  Yesterday it was in the high 20's.  The days are getting longer and warmer and the beach is starting it's siren song.  Also, the bugs and lizards are coming out.  We don't mind the lizards too much although they have a habit of being where you don't want them (example: washing machine).  The bugs are everywhere and irritating, however.  Speaking of reptiles, we had our first snake sighting on Friday.  We were at a beach and it went across our path.  We don't know what it was but it was small and brown.  Considering that Australia has the highest number of venemous snake species in the world, I'm guessing that it wasn't deadly but only mildly dangerous.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The hunt for a new home continues.  We have seen a couple of options and we're looking at a couple more this week.  Of course, they are either too small, too expensive, too far from school or too run down.  But there are some decent, but expensive, options.  The biggest issue is that our current lease expires November 1.  At present, all but one property that we are looking at are available now.  If we try to lease one now we have to try to get out of our current lease which may or may not be easy depending on if there is someone who is ready to move into our current abode.  If we wait, we take the chance that there may not be any decent properties available.  However, just about every week a new property comes on the market that is decent.  So I think we'll be okay.