My experience of housing in Melbourne
By Ezmee Wyatt, University of Melbourne, Australia
This is my first blog post after being in Melbourne for just over 2 months. I arrived on the 8th of July after a 24-hour flight, and felt ready to embark on this adventure. It has been such a whirlwind of experiences; I have only now found time to sit down and begin to reflect.
My friend from Manchester and I had decided to stay in a hostel for two weeks whilst we found our feet, and this was both a blessing and a curse. Our stay there allowed us to get a grasp of the city before deciding on where best to live, but we did not anticipate quite how hard finding a house would be, realising it perhaps would have been better to find permanent accommodation before we got out here (starting university from a hostel is quite an experience!). Nevertheless, after our two weeks in the hostel (and a few nights on my friend’s floor!) I managed to find a house share in Brunswick (a great suburb to live in as a student) which is great and much cheaper than some of my friends are spending on the student accommodation here.
My main take-aways regarding housing here are that it is much harder to get than in Manchester, the housing crisis and lack of student house culture in Melbourne, meant that many of the people I messaged about a house were apprehensive because of my age; all the people I live with now are in their mid to late 20s. Because of this, finding a place to live became an underlying stress of my first few weeks here, which could have been avoided if I’d sorted out a place before I came (although this comes with its own risks). If you can afford it, I would therefore recommend getting student accommodation (it’s UniLodge here) as this will also be a good way to make friends, particularly with other international students (most Australians live at home for uni). Another thing to note is that many of the rooms in flatshares come unfurnished (like mine!) so if you go for this option you will likely have to buy a bed and wardrobe which also adds to costs and is quite inconvenient!
Whatever you decide though, it will definitely work out in the end, I am very settled in my place now and the people are lovely – just don’t expect it to be the same as your experience in Manchester because it definitely won’t be!
