Melissa and Maggie Liu applied for 30 rental properties in Sydney unsuccessfully before agreeing to pay a whopping six months’ rent in advance for a one-bedroom apartment, with a 45-minute commute for one of the sisters.

The 18-year-old twins, who grew up in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou before completing high school in Melbourne, have endured a brutal introduction to the Australian rental market, which experts say is the tightest since the 1970s.