Waiting for belongings to arrive.

Hi all,

Just curious as to how you guys who are already living the dream (soooo jealous, it seems to be taking forever) lived whilst waiting for your furniture to arrive?

We have 3 boys, 9,3 & 14mnths and plan to send our stuff about 4wks before we leave but we know we are gonna have to wait at least another 6wks when we get there and I'm not sure what we sleep on etc. Have looked into holiday accommodation or the short term lets but they are really out of our price range and I don't want to have to prolong getting out there any longer than we have to!

Any tips and advice would really be appreciated please.

Thank you

L x

A lot of our tenants have recently moved to Perth and need somewhere to stay for 6-8 weeks while waiting for their containers so they stay with us. Two of our current tenants have actually just asked if they can stay an extra three weeks, as their shipments were delayed... I have no idea what causes this but this has happened on two separate occasions already this year! Maybe it's weather issues?

The other option is to rent unfurnished and just buy really minimal stuff - like an outdoor table setting (that you use indoors), blow up mattresses, etc. However even renting an unfurnished rental can take a few weeks before you're successful, as there seems to be a shortage of rental properties generally at the moment.

We did as Jen says, brought a few new things we needed anyway, TV, sofa, 1 new bed for the extra bedroom we didnt have before, a couple of matresses, a beer fridge for the milk, cheap cookware and cuttlery from Red Dot and roughed it for a few weeks.

Thanks for that Greg that was what I needed to hear. I kinda had in mind we could do that but wasn't sure if it was possible with 3 young children. Think that is best route for us as the temp stay accommodation is just another expense we could really do without. Did you arrange your rent before you left UK as it seems you cannot do that with agents until you're in Oz and we were hoping to pay deposits etc before we left so we could just move in?

Thanks Lucy

Hey lucy, my wife and I moved from Scotland 7 weeks ago with our 2 year old son! It less than 6 months for us from deciding to move to actuall arriving in WA. this lead us into a tight financial position so we packed up our clothes, his toys and my computer only and stored them at the in laws and sold everything else. We arrived with nothing other than a travel cot and the 70kg of luggage Emirates allowed us. We booked a hotel for 4 nights prior to leaving and had to extend this to 7 nights after arrival. We were lucky and managed to secure a rental property within a week. It was un furnished so we went K Mart and bought an inflatable double matress, 2 beanbags, a box of kitchen ware, and some bedding and towels. We also purchased a tele and fridge freezer and are awaiting to start work then we will furnish our house. There are negs and positives to the way we done it but are glad we did and we still laugh at sitting on beanbags. Plus we wont need a bunch of adaptors or to change plugs as our electricals will be purchased here.

There are gonna be a lot of people in your and our position so not to worry.

Thanks for that Greg that was what I needed to hear. I kinda had in mind we could do that but wasn't sure if it was possible with 3 young children. Think that is best route for us as the temp stay accommodation is just another expense we could really do without. Did you arrange your rent before you left UK as it seems you cannot do that with agents until you're in Oz and we were hoping to pay deposits etc before we left so we could just move in?

Thanks Lucy

We didn't rent before we came and it was much harder than I ever believed to find somewhere. In the end it was nowhere near where we thought we wanted to be but it has turned out well. I would start a new thread dedicated to seeing if you can find a place before you get here. There are people on here involved in real estate and people on here with spare houses. As you will find when you get here it is who you know that counts, so making contacts is the way to go. Do you have any idea where you want to be and what you are looking for in a suburb?

We did hotel in CBD first 2 nights, that was fab, then a holiday rental house in Sorrento for 2 weeks, then moved into an unfurnished house for 3 months till stuff arrived and got free stuff of Freecycle the yahoo group, bought a cheap car from a main dealer, Ebay, Ikea, Target, Big W! I loved the minimalism and when my container, 40ft got here, I wish it had fallen off the ship. Now I'm ebaying furniture I no longer need or have room for. BTY you can hire trailers here to collect furnitureThe weather is so lovely you'll not be in for long as there is so much to explore, organise.