‘Shoulder-to-shoulder’ at rental viewings
When Wendy Mostert was given 42 days for her and her family to move out of their Invercargill rental home and find another place to live, she was not too fazed. The South African family has been in New Zealand for three years and the first time they searched for a rental home in Invercargill there were few problems. One application and jackpot, they had a place to live, she said. Three years later and the landlord wanted to return to live at the home. This time Mostert said the landscape had changed dramatically when they went about searching for a new rental. ‘‘I thought, ‘surely, one week and we should be able to find a place’.’’ However, Mostert said she would turn up to rental viewings and it would be ‘‘shoulder-toshoulder’’ with other people also wanting to rent the house. ‘‘It was very tight, you could hardly move and you would think, ‘I’m one in 20 or 30 chance of getting this place’. There were just so many applications,’’ she said. All up, Mostert estimated she put five applications in for different rentals only to be told by the rental companies that they had numerous applications and she had missed out. Her husband is a veterinarian so has a steady income available to pay the rent, which Mostert thought would put them in a strong position. However it remained a struggle, she said. After an extensive search and plenty of viewings, five days from when they had to vacate their current rental they were accepted into a new rental home. ‘‘With three kids it was very stressful. You start to wonder what you are going to do,’’ she said.