PropertyFlags · guideWhat to check before renting: the inspection, then the record
A rental inspection lasts fifteen minutes in a crowd. Here is how to spend those minutes well, and then the half of the check nobody can do in person, because it lives in registers and maps rather than in the apartment.
The fifteen minutes on site
Run the taps and count seconds for hot water. Open and lock every window. Check phone signal in the back rooms, not the living room. Smell for damp and look for fresh paint over patches, bubbling and swollen skirting. Note where the light comes from and imagine it in June, not January. Open a window on the traffic side and listen. Photograph anything you would want on the condition report later. None of this is rude; all of it is normal.
The half you cannot see there
The building's regulatory record: serious defect orders are public, and living through rectification works is exactly the kind of thing you want to know before signing, not after the scaffolding goes up.
The street's exposure: flight corridors, surface rail within earshot, the arterial road that is quiet at inspection hour. The maps know; Saturday morning does not.
The light, structurally: which way the living areas face and what stands in the winter sun path decides whether the place is bright in June or needs the heater and the lights on by four. It can be read from geometry before you ever visit.
The area: crime rates for the suburb, what is about to be built on the block next door, and what internet technology actually serves the address, which no listing has ever volunteered.
Common questions
What should I check at a rental inspection?
Water pressure and hot water at the taps, every window and its lock, phone signal in the back rooms, damp smells and fresh paint patches, where afternoon light lands, traffic noise with the windows open, and the state of anything you would report at the condition report stage. Fifteen focused minutes beats an hour of wandering.
What can I not see at an inspection?
The building's regulatory record, the street's noise exposure on the maps, whether the bedroom faces winter shade, area crime rates, what is about to be built next door, and what internet technology actually serves the address. These live in government registers and datasets, not in the room you are standing in.
Why would a renter check defect orders?
Because if Building Commission NSW has ordered serious rectification work on the building, you would be living through that work: scaffolding, noise, access restrictions, sometimes moved car spaces. It is public record and almost no applicant checks it. Asking the property manager about an order you found is a perfectly fair question.
Is there a renter version of the report?
Yes, for NSW addresses: the same registers read through a renter lens. Noise, light, internet, area crime, building orders and nearby construction get the weight; owner topics like development potential are left out. It ends with the questions worth asking the property manager before you sign.