Respite

So I've spent most of my waken hours today looking for apartments, with a break in between to go to the mall. Needless to say my excitement levels are low today. Here's why it's so frustrating looking for apartments in this region...

- There's a few places you can find apartments, but there is one site in particular that everyone uses, which you would assume would make it easy: wrong!

- Landlords list their apartment with multiple agents, so there may be 6 ads for the same apartment.

- Nailing a viewing can be tedious because the agent invariably needs to hunt down the keys.

- All agents repost their ad every day to ensure theirs is at the top of the search results, which gives a false sense of choice.

- Agents never want to tell you in advance which apartment you're going to see, you'll just know which block it's in. You have to fight with them to disclose the apartment number to make sure you're not going to see one you've previously viewed.

- Agents are notoriously bad at calling you back.

- About 70% of agents are of Indian persuasion, with no business cards and poor English.

- Agents tend not to post pictures of the actual apartment they're listing. They'll usually use images they have of one in that block, but a much bigger / cleaner / brighter version.

- Often, when you eventually get in to see the apartment, it's not the one that's been (falsely) advertised - it's one that's more expensive. Funny that.

- And of course, everything stops on a Friday. No viewings.

So fingers crossed we can view lots of potential new homes tomorrow. I have faith that we will find the right place, but it dawned on us today that although we have a month from today to move out, and we are away on holiday for a week towards the end of July, so our timeline is much shorter than we would like it to be! Gulp. Deep breaths...