Whats the avg monthly rent for a property in Sydney?

You can only find studio/one bedroom type apartments in older buildings in the inner city places like Paddington-Bondi-Darlinghurst-Newtown, the majority of the buildings do not have parking and your only option if you have a car is park in the street (good luck finding a parking space!) you have to go to the laundromat to wash your clothes, and you gotta be kidding about having a dog in a studio? these places are the size of 2-3 car spaces,the rents are astronomical and they are in such short supply you can expect there to be at least 20 other people there if you go to an open inspection, I went to a Saturday morning inspection 3 years ago and the agent had to organise the people into 3-4 groups of about 15 at a time because there was no way possible for 50-60 people to view the apartment at the same time, these kind of apartments havent been built for decades, in the outer suburbs you will rarely find anything less than 2 bedrooms, a standard lease agreement would certainly not allow dogs in an apartment, you would have to negotiate with the agent to have a special pet clause written in, difficult but not impossible

The further away you go from the city the cheaper it gets, an as far as pets are concerned, try looking for a house ,or a townhouse, and yes Melbourne is cheaper than Sydney but not by much.