It is a difficult situation, if you dont have someone to stay with then you may have to find a furnished or semi-furnished apartment/rental. These are very hard to come by. I emailed so many places and had a reply from 2. You have a couple of options if you are in this situation

• Find a rental for a week AFTER you arrive. Spend that first week in a motel, or if you have no children and are happy to, a backpackers. I tell you now, if you have the money, and a vehicle, you will get everything you need within a week. We tied into a 6 month furniture lease agreement and then found everything we needed in a week, we weren't in a hurry but places like Super A Mart have such fantastic things for so cheap it was just so easy and we found exactly what we wanted. We purchased our beds secondhand purely because that was something we didnt want to rush into and they were only a couple of hundred dollars secondhand, we are actually yet to buy new ones because the ones we purchased are fine! So as you can imagine we were stuck paying for rental furniture we didnt need, and by the end of the lease would actually have paid out more than most of the furniture would've actually cost us! If you find good landlords/property managers they may provide you with somewhere to store your furniture until you move in. I would recommend doing it this way if you have the confidence.
• You could find a furnished house and tie into a 6 month lease. As I said before these are difficult to find. There are a lot of rentals here at the moment but they get snapped up very quickly. You have to be on the ball.
• You may find that you will also be faced with a similar problem even if you ship you things over, sometimes they can be delayed so you may have a house but no furniture, if this is the case then you may want to try and find a motel or long lease cabin until your furniture arrives, or just buy the necessities until your things arrive.

Keep in mind that it is VERY possible that you will find a rental once you actually get here, it is very hard knowing you are coming and not knowing where you are going, we secured our rental about a week before we came (that seems to be the norm) and we felt so much better once we had a 'home'.

Obviously everyones ideal would be being able to stay with someone until they get themselves sorted, and perhaps if you are already in Australia and are willing to provide a room for short term lease you could post in the forum, Karma is a great thing, you give a little, you get a little. We were all there at some point, we will certainly always have a couch here if need be!

The best sites for rental properties are:

Also www.seqrents.com.au I have been told is a great site!!

Here is a link to a tenancy info site, Im sorry I cant give you a quick overview, Ill try and update with just all the important stuff later! http://www.rta.qld.gov.au/tenancy_info_section.cfm

Most of the individual rental companies will put their listing on these sites. So they are the best places to try!

FINDING YOUR OWN HOME:

You may want to wait until you arrive in Queensland and you are settled, plus there are added bonuses such as receiving the first home owners grant, and some stamp duty relief (tax you must pay over here - it is explained later) But some people would much rather buy right from the beginning. If this is the case, there is only one person you should contact, he is a Kiwi who has set up thousands of home loans for other Kiwis here in Qld, His name is Paul Adamson and his Company is Kiwi Home Loans. MAKE SURE you mention this site so you get the best!! And make sure when you have settled and you are ready to think about purchasing your own home, give him a call, he is fantastic and can help you through the process over here (it is very different to back home) Paul has an 0800 number on his site for Kiwis, so if you have any questions Id give him a call.

Again I would recommend the same sites for house hunting too.