Renting

When we first get to Hamilton we are going to rent a place to live. We do want to buy, but not knowing the areas, we will rent and then start looking.

Anyway, we have been surfing the web for places and keep coming across several, but they are being let by agents, no problem here, just we know we will have to pay a little more in fees etc by using the agent!

Contacted several agents today to find out fees etc. No worries there, not as expensive as I thought or though still up there with having to front up with about 5 weeks rent in advance!
So I explained our situation to one agent and asked how the process went? We wanted to view some properties online and then arrange a time to view the 1 or 2 we are interested in.
This is not possible!!!!
They would like you to do a drive by and then choose just 1 place to view, they will only show you 1 property a day?????
There must be someone out there who realises that we are not in the town, we can not just drive by these places and say yes or no to viewing. We do not have a week to spend in Hamilton trying to sort this out, we have 2 consequtive weekends (oh also they don't work weekends!!!)

So our thoughts of maybe using an agent as an easy hassle free way to get a property to rent down there has just flown out of the window, or more to the point I shoved it out the window at full speed!

So we our know back to our back up plan. Check the web site for private renters, call them and arrange a time to view their property on a Saturday morning and hope we don't have to run too far all over Hamilton after we have set up several viewings of different places.
This way will be hard work but at least we hopefully won't have to come up with 5 weeks rent in advance and pay an agent fee.

So the 2nd weekend in September will be our first jaunt down to find somewhere to live.
Will keep you posted on how it goes.