I don't have references for renting a home in Australia as I have lived in my own home for the past 16 years. What sort of info can I give instead?

We were in the same situation, having not rented for many years and having no references, so we offered three months rent up front and got a house no problem.

You should be fine with some general character references. When we applied for our rental they were fairly relaxed about the types of references provided. The most important things were credit checks etc. Surely others reading this have been in the same situation?

If you have sold your house you can use your estate agent as a reference. I think they may be asked what state your house was in for sale (i.e. clean and tidy or run down and dirty).

We were in the same situation. We submitted a copy of our most recent land rates and NZ phone bill with our names and address on it. We also got a copy of the Certificate of Title for the property which showed how long we had owned the property. We are renting our NZ house but if you sell it, the agents here ask for the details of the real estate agents who handled the sale. The agents looked pretty favourably on us becos we had owned our own house.