I moved to Melbourne from Bangalore in 2021 on a graduate work visa, spent eight months in a Box Hill student rental that smelled permanently of damp, and finally landed a single bedroom in a Carnegie sharehouse where everyone is over 25 and the kitchen is reliably clean. I work as a backend engineer at a fintech in Cremorne, and on weekends I write the renter’s-guide-with-real-PTV-data pieces I would have killed for in my first Melbourne year.
What I write about. Renting in the south-east as a single income on $300–$400 a week. Carnegie vs Murrumbeena vs Bentleigh as a commute audit (the answer changes by line and by hour). What $300/wk actually buys in 2026 — and the share-economy maths of bills, internet, parking, and the gym you stopped going to. PTV-tested commute paths: which trams actually meet which trains, where the timetable is fiction, and where you should walk between stations because Google Maps doesn’t know about the level crossing removal.
How I work. I time my commutes. With a stopwatch. I publish the dataset. I cite Domain medians with the quarter and PTV claims to the GTFS feed (the real one, not the screenshot). I write up sharehouse advice from inside three current sharehouses’ worth of WhatsApp threads (with permission and anonymised). I do not accept invitations from rental platforms, rooming services, or developer marketing.
Where you’ll find me. Carnegie since 2022. Koornang Road for the Friday-night Indian dinner run. Caulfield Park for the weekend run. The 67 tram, then the Sandringham line, into Cremorne weekday mornings — yes I have the spreadsheet.
Conflicts of interest. None. I work in fintech (engineering, not lending). I do not consult for any platform, rental service, or PropTech company. My partner works in academia.
Sample headlines I’d write:
- “Best south-east suburbs to rent if you commute to Cremorne (PTV-tested)”
- “Carnegie vs Murrumbeena vs Bentleigh: a Tuesday-morning commute audit”
- “Sharehouse renting in 2026: what $300/wk actually buys you in the south-east”
Articles by Saanvi Deshmukh are based on first-hand commutes and Domain or PTV-GTFS data with the date cited. She pays her own rent, her own myki, and accepts no platform partnerships.