SunshineJ

Whitsundays and GBR are musts .. Would be a shame to leave oz without doing. Touring west coast from Broome to Perth was fantastic though .. Including NIngaloo (and Monkey Mia)! Enjoy your travels :biggrin:

Depending on what/where you want to rent, offering $5 per week above asking price can help. My first few rentals were brand new, central, suited to singles and reasonably expensive so we were able to negotiate to actually pay less than asking price. But when we wanted to rent a family home in a good school suburb, competition was fierce! And after being outbid on a few properties, we offered slightly more than asking price and were successful! We also had to provide 6 (yes 6!) referees each .. Current and past landlords, current and past employer, 2 x friends. Employer was grilled about our personalities to ensure we would be easy to deal with. Other rentals were not as tough to get as that though! Some agents prefer you to submit applications online, so perhaps that is what "registering" first means? But being first to register or submit app does not guarantee you will be accepted .. Higher bidder will usually win! Good luck!

We had similar experience to Sally, $94 a day in childcare near Brighton, with 50% rebate. The rebate is capped at around $7,000 a year though, so I think when we worked it out, we would get 50% back on first 3 days per week over the course of a year .. But any additional days care were full price with no rebate. There are waitlists, but you will get somewhere. We accepted our second preference, but didnt end up taking the place as i just kept ringing our top preference weekly to remind them we were looking, and we soon picked up a spo there. We accepted just one day a week in our preferred place to get a foot in the door and within weeks we had also picked up the extra days we wanted.

We have just bought our first home, in Aspendale and keen to hear from those living in the area. We have a toddler so we will need childcare. Is bonkers the only childcare centre? What's it like? Tips on childcare for now, and schools for later would be great, thanks!