Best way of renting (and getting a mortgage eventually) in London?

Lieutenant_Thrift

I'm looking for a one bedroom flat for myself and my partner in London and would like to know the easiest and most inexpensive way to find a decent place let by honest people.

To tell you a story, I spent several weeks in Spring last year viewing places in zones 1 and 2 I'd seen on Gumtree. Most of them were appalling, far below the standards of anything you'd see in provinces for the same price (spare the 'we told you so: London is a different planet from the rest of the country') and I ended up at first in a reasonably nice flat in Victoria only to get evicted by the grosvenor estate as the woman I paid the "rent" to was owing them tens of thousands in unpaid rent. Needless to say, she made off with the £300 "deposit" she took from me.

I then ended up with an eccentric man in Whitechapel paying an absolute fortune (almost £900 a month) for a small room in a filthy 200 year old house with bare, dusty floorboards and rags for curtains. He wouldn't even let me use the living room without increasing the rent. Before I ended up in both places, I saw dozens upon dozens of hell hole dumps and it was a soul destroying waste of time.

I'm now in a studio in a fairly rough part of town with my partner, living cheaply but still getting ripped off by the people we lease from (they live rent free as what we give them covers the rent on the whole place + about £100 more). After a year of living here, we have run of space to put new stuff we've bought and our situations have changed so we are looking for a more spacious place along the Met line (although not in Croxley or Watford). We're looking at nestoria.co.uk as it seems to be a comprehensive site and is easy to use. I've practically given up on gumtree as it is swamped by obvious advance fee scam ads. The Met police had a press release about it today (Although they've missed an opportunity to get an important message out to everyone,they've aimed it only at students)

The one place where we were at the point of viewing this week turned out to be an "agency" who would require a £150 "admin" fee if we took on a place we'd contacted them about. I only started to smell a rat when they told me over the phone the landlord of the place we were interested in had "given it to another "agency"".

I would appreciate advice on how to go about this without ending up dealing with obnoxious people or losing a significant percentage of our savings. The plan is to rent a place for six months or so. After that, I should have completed probation at work and we're thinking of taking a mortgage.

So, what do you think the best thing is for us to do?

Thanks,

LT

chewmylegoff

rent through an agency. you'll have to pay their admin fees, but that's a fact of life. use an established multi-office agency, they're less likely to be useless cowboys.

not clear what your budget is, but if you want somewhere half decent in zone 1-2 then you're going to have to pay for it. expect £1,000-£1,200pcm for a 1 bed flat in zone 2. may be able to get it cheaper but you'll have to sacrifice location and/or quality. agency fees are generally going to be £100+ per person including credit check and contract fee.

if you don't want to pay that much, your best bet is to rent further away from central london. will still have to pay agency fees though.

you may not like the concept of an agency fee, but at least you know that it is a genuine set up and the letting agent isn't going to work for free.

LizzieS_2

Compare the prices of where you want to live now against a cheaper rate with commuting - your ultimate goal is to save to buy and the cheapest of the 2 will get you there quicker.

Why are you buying loads of things to the point you need something bigger to rent? Saving a deposit for a mortgage is better than buying the non-essentials for a property you haven't even yet bought - once you achieve your goal of a mortgage, you can buy what you really want at that time, or save for it knowing at least you have the home you want (believe me tastes do change and furniture is not as important as it may appear).

Sharon87

All the places you have mention have been near to Central London.

I would suggest if you want somewhere along the Met line (I presume you work near a met line station), I'd suggest somewhere like Finchley Road, or if you don't mind changing once somewhere along the Jubilee line. I live in Willesden and have always used Gumtree to find a place or to find housemates. There are much less scams outside of Central London. But they're pretty easy to spot anyway.

If you want to save for a mortgage my advice is to houseshare for a little bit. (I'm not sure how old you are, so I'm not sure if you fancy this). I'm house sharing in Zone 2 at the minute. The large room in our house rented by a couple is £620 all bills included - and that is a massive room! Just gives you an idea of prices. A one bed flat in this area can cost less than £200 a week (so over £800 a month). If you want to save for a mortgage and live in a nice place - house share.

Lieutenant_Thrift

Thanks for your replies.

Just to clear things up, I'm in my early 30s and my partner is in herlate 20s. She will be a student next year. We're thinking of getting married and are fed up with having to share stuff with our flatmates so house share isn't really an option.

Today we saw a lot of tatty, claustrophobic rubbish in Harrow for about the maximum amount we are prepared to spend on rent so I think we're going to end up living closer to Amersham than Baker Street. (According to Nestoria.co.uk, we could get a whole house in Amersham even for a bit less than what we'd pay for a dingy studio similar to what we've got just now but in Harrow). The longer commute will be a pain but I'd rather so much money was still in my bank account than someone else's.

I'm seeing an IFA on Monday, will ponder what he has to say.

omen666

Amersham I thought was pretty expensive though? How does the rent compare when you factor in cost of travelling to work and time taken to get there and back, in terms of quality of life?

I got mine off Gumtree and live in Stratford Centre and pay £953.33 p/cm suits me