Hi Guys,

Thanks for all your comments and replies. It's been quite thought provoking. 

The main issue I had is that despite being prepared to pay $45K over the next 12 months I'm still being treated like pondscum by the agent just because I choose to rent. The agent is typically around 14 and probably either lives at home with mummy and daddy or rents themselves. The agent turns up 10 minutes late to a 15 minute inspection leaving the 20+ people who have turned up less than 5 minutes to run around fighting with each other to inspect and decide if this is where they want to spend the next 6 – 12 months of their lives. Despite all rents being quite similar, all rental properties are not the same. There are a few gems out there in my price range but get snapped up the day they get listed. 

I do also choke at spending $850/week in rent – especially after living overseas. I spent 2 years in a huge 4 bedroom house by a lake surrounded by famous footballers and only 15 minutes drive from a major UK city for almost half of what I am paying now. I spent another 2 years in Istanbul in an area surrounded by actors, musicians and movie directors for about a quarter of what I'm paying now. To come back and have to pay significantly more than both places combined weekly for a fairly average place has taken 2 years to get used to – although I'm still not really used to it yet. 

We had actually intended to start looking at purchasing around now but a property purchase from March didn't go quite to plan and we had to inject quite a bit of extra cash into the deal which has forced us to continue renting because our deposit has been chewed up. I have looked at no deposit home loans which these days require a guarantor. As both our families' reside overseas this is not an option. I have looked at rent-to-buy but most of these seem to be further from the CBD and further south/west than I'd like to go and most vendor finance I have seen lately has been for new apartments. 

Does anyone know of any rent-to-buy or vendor finance places on the north shore or does anyone have any other creative options that I might be able to take advantage of? If we were buying our own place we would be willing to go significantly higher on the weekly payments. 

Thanks again everyone. 

Carl