'For 6 months I was denied a rental. Here's what I changed on my application to get accepted.'

Many people have found themselves in the Rental Crisis through misfortune: no-fault evictions, unrelenting rent increases or break-ups. But me? Totally my own fault. Let me fill you in on what happened six months ago that got me stuck in the Crisis… how I finally got out of it, and how you can too.

In May this year, I moved into a motorhome with my son and my cat. I wanted to travel more, work less and above all: spend more quality time as a mum instead of an employee. This could have worked… but it didn't.

I bought the motorhome I could afford at $30,000 and it just didn't cut the mustard for daily-living with a three-year-old. The place I'd organised to park it for free became unavailable. And parking it elsewhere was costing more than my previous rent (of $450 per week). After one particularly challenging sleepless night, being rocked in a storm and ending up with sea-legs the next day… I sold the motorhome. And we moved to my mum's house in July 2024.

At first, I naively thought — the Crisis won't affect me. I was employed — earning about $75,000. And there were an abundance of properties in my area. So I inspected, applied and… was rejected. Over and over. Was it the cat? My income? As it turns out, it was both of those things and more.

Let's start with my beloved cat. Legislation regarding cats in South Australia changed on July 1. The goal was to make it easier for tenants to be accepted into properties with a pet. Hey politicians — it's had the opposite affect. It is now harder. This is because many stratas changed their by-laws to by-pass the new legislation. Under the new legislation, if by-laws refuse pets, then they're not obliged to accept pets. This put additional pressure on the properties without these by-laws.

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One property I visited that allowed pets under strata, had 32 people line up ahead of me at an Open House. The agent later told me that despite the property having a pet door, it went to a non-pet owner. Why? Pet owners are now required to apply for their pet through strata, prior to moving in, which can take up to three weeks. The unit was vacant. By not choosing a pet owner, the landlord received three weeks additional rent and avoided the risk of a pet being rejected and having to find a new tenant all over again. You can't blame them for rejecting the pet owner.

So the first step could be: rehome your pet temporarily. Before accepting a rental agreement (ONCE it is offered to you), check if strata will enable a pet application in the future. Move in. Apply for your pet. Doing this may mean you are rejected but it is unlikely IF you meet all the criteria of the legislation. But still, risky.

With this in mind, be available to move in on the day the property becomes vacant. You might be able to push it back a week if you're approved. Or you might not. But being open to this could make all the difference.

The next consideration is your income. Payslips are the way to go, if you can get them. Of course, if you freelance like me, this is problematic. On advice from an agent, I took screenshots of my incomings (only) within my banking app and redacted the transaction details, for privacy.

You need to prove your income is about three times the amount of the rent. So, if you want to rent for $450, you need to earn $70,000. This is tricky for many single people to prove… even if they know they will make the ends meet.

One fellow mum who had escaped the Crisis suggested temporarily acquiring a casual (ideally with a payslip) job every three weeks, for three weeks. This way, you can use the previous month's payslips for a few weeks into the next month and have breaks between each stint of payslip-collecting. Yes, I know what I'm suggesting may mean you don't actually earn more money because you spend it on babysitters, petrol, tax and lost Centrelink payments. I get it. It sucks. It's absurd, even. But this isn't forever — this is short term to get out of the Crisis.

This next one made me eyeroll but another agent told me to dress like I was going for a job interview. It pained me to do this — it felt like joining a breadline in a cocktail dress. But on a few occasions, I discovered the landlords were present or watching. The exhausted mum carrying a dragon plushie in her elasticised shorts just doesn't appeal as much to as many landlords as the childless woman in a corporate dress. I hate writing this. It's just how it is. And I'm sorry. I am the plushie mum.

The next thing is that I stopped taking my son to inspections, even though this meant I was paying for extended family daycare, it delayed his dinner time and often ruined his bedtime. This allowed me to inspect and apply immediately and in some instances, this enabled agents to inform owners of my application as early as that evening when they provided feedback on the open house. It set me apart as the 'first applicant'.

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These final two 'skills' were the most demoralising to me but perhaps what finally got me over the line:

• Swallowing all my pride, I posted in local Facebook groups. The post contained a pic of me and my son, explained where we'd lived, why we'd left, that we had an excellent reference, I had an income, and we didn't want to leave the area. I asked for people who knew me to comment references and for local landlords to keep me in mind.

This led to:

• Multiple short term rental offers

• Multiple offers from local landlords who said they'd keep me in mind if their tenants left (which, at the very least, buoyed my spirits)

• One very generous real estate agent who offered to critique one of my applications…

She said:

• Don't offer extra money. It makes you look desperate and like there's something you're hiding. (The irony of course is that I was desperate, and I was hiding my shame and loathing for the entire experience.)

• Don't provide unnecessary information. Owners only want to know that you'll be tidy, clean, don't smoke, pay your rent and intend to stay long term. I highly recommend showing your application to a trusted hard-nose friend and asking them to remove the waffle.

• Finally, I started arriving in the second half of inspections. The agents were more relaxed and able to have a chat with fewer people around. I asked questions like:

• I'm after a long term rental. What is the owner looking for?

• Has the owner allowed a pet previously?

• Why are the current tenants leaving?

And then one day, as I toiled in mental misery and hopelessness… I received an SMS. It felt like a scam.

Then an email came through to confirm it: after around 150 inspections (spanning 3-5 days a week for literal months) and around 50 applications (each taking about an hour)… it was finally our time. We move this week.

And it will be your time, soon. Hang in there. Share these tips with someone who needs them as much as I did.

Feaure Image: Supplied.