It's tricky, especially if someone in the house isn't working. Of course the way around that is to have the lease in one name primarily and have anyone else down as an additional tenant. I might say though that renting privately can be either wonderful or utterly utterly dreadful (the house with shoddy wiring that no one would even look at comes to mind...and did I mention the rotted floor boards....) at least with Real estate agents it's a little easier to *ahem* force them to hold up their end. Then of course there's that other thing that being that at least if you have the hitler of landlords they have to deal with them not you.

Now we don't have what you'd call a very good real estate agent, they mucked up the rent the first month they had the place and tried to evict us...why because some idiot had put the monthly rent down as fortnightly. It's breath taking that no one questioned the fact that the rent was then about double what it should have been! Instead they tried to throw us out. Then again on the other hand they got the cupboard door and the tap in the shower fixed (both of which would fall down, or fly off at the slightest provocation because they weren't attached to anything, no hinges, and no thread left on the tap spindle...the landlord thought this was a minor problem but then she didn't have them fall on her feet three times a week.) in a week after our lovely (and she is lovely) landlord had kept me waiting 4 years!

Don't give up Cossie just aim a little lower see if you can find some where a bit cheaper, even if it's a short lease. Just something to get you some rental history. The more expensive the weekly rent the less likely they are to let just anyone have it, not that you're just anyone but you know what I mean. It's a pain I know but it's just one of those things.