Corporate Housing - a testimonial

I discovered many rental apartments in Melbourne on the main real-estate web-sites.  Some were even furnished although it was hard to tell the quality of the furnishings from the photographs.  But when I contacted the agents, it turns out that short term rentals in Melbourne (less than 12 months) are almost non-existent, and that under Australian real-estate law you have to see the apartment in person before you can sigh a lease.

So I contacted some of the many serviced apartments in Melbourne, most of which can be booked on-line.  Prices vary greatly, but were always above my Melbourne accommodation budget.  I don’t mind adding a little money of my own for the right place, but all the serviced apartments in Melbourne that I found were completely booked out for 2 weeks in the second month of my stay, apparently due to the Tennis and other international events.

Quite by coincidence a colleague of mine mentioned that her brother had stayed in Melbourne for 12 months, and upon further investigation it turned out his accommodation in Melbourne was a corporate apartment provided by a company called Corporate Keys.  Her brother had stayed in a Corporate Keys apartment in Melbourne for the entire 12 months and highly recommended them to me.

The Corporate Keys web-site had a list of apartments in Melbourne that were soon to be available, plus other helpful information about locations, services and a comparison between serviced apartments in Melbourne and their own corporate accommodation in Melbourne.  Corporate Keys apartments, they claimed, were about twice as large but about half the price of serviced apartments and other Melbourne accommodation.  They accept short-term rentals as little as 28 days, and they don’t take short-term advanced accommodation bookings, so there is no problem with your accommodation being booked out during one of Melbourne’s frequent international events.

To cut a long story short, I booked a one bedroom corporate apartment in Melbourne’s Southbank, in Freshwater Place.  Booking was easy - I got on their chat line, they emailed me a list of apartments to meet my location and budget, I chose one and filled in a form.  I selected the airport transfer option and the weekly cleaning option as well.

Now I am in my apartment in Melbourne and it is everything I had hoped for and more; the apartment has great views along the Yarra river, the furniture is a much higher standard than I have ever seen in a serviced apartment (in the UK at any rate), the gym and pool are fabulous and I am the envy of everyone who sees my corporate apartment, (I show it off every chance I get!)  Anyway, my 3 months Melbourne accommodation allowance is about to run out and I have decided to stay with Corporate Keys – with the current exchange rate (I am paid in pounds), for A$850 per week I am living the executive apartment life for a fraction of the cost at home and after a long hard day at work I just love to return to my corporate apartment.