Rent a Room LONDON

mac1392

Basically I'm looking to rent a room in London from August/September for 6 months. The nearer the City (camberwell) area the better - I have a budget of around £400-500pcm all bills included - Is this realistic???
Any advice - I have had quite a lot of people contact me that are trying to scam me, how do I know they are genuine? How would you suggest going about getting a room?

Any advice welcomed!

gnimia

try moveflat.com... imo better than gumtree - and allows you to search by bus route! Its specifically for flat/houseshares

JasX

gumtree and spareroom.co.uk are both worth scanning thru, they tend to have pointers on 'how not to get scammed/personal safety too.

Best way to end up with something decent is physically go down and look (or get a friend to) at a few places and don't hand any money over until you've been shown round inside (to avoid the scam of being shown the outside of a flat someone doesn't actually own)

Another way to avoid scams is to go via a letting agent but that tends to be more expensive go browse 'findaproperty' and look at a few areas -be warned south of central london until you start to hit the outer suburbs can get a bit rough

lizzielondon

do you want to live in the City or Camberwell? or is the City where you'll be working?

fc123

mac1392 wrote: »

Basically I'm looking to rent a room in London from August/September for 6 months. The nearer the City (camberwell) area the better - I have a budget of around £400-500pcm all bills included - Is this realistic???
Any advice - I have had quite a lot of people contact me that are trying to scam me, how do I know they are genuine? How would you suggest going about getting a room?

Any advice welcomed!

Our son found a room on Gumtree in a shared house in Hoxton (Old St Tube) £500pcm exclusive. Pretty grotty ex LA house but nice enough housemates and he seems happy with it as he likes the area a lot. Seems nearly the whole estate is full of bright young things working + playing hard...and paying crazy rent (IMO).

He seemed wised up to the scams as when his GF was looking she really believed some amazing place was available for pennies (by comparison) rent. He fwd me the LL e-mail and it was easy to spot the scam just by the way it was written. A bit similar to those ''I have 60 million and need a safe bank account'' types.

Camberwell is SE London though...but easy enough to commute to the city

breadlinebetty

You won't get anything very nice for that amount, especially all-inclusive. But Camberwell isn't the best of areas so you might strike lucky and find a decent-ish room for £500 all inclusive.

Just remember not to pay a penny upfront until you've viewed the property and met the landlord/landlady. When paying the deposit and rent upfront (usually one month's rent) do it by cheque or bank transfer - don't pay the deposit by cash. And make sure you get a receipt.

joolsybools

Be very very careful if you use gumtree there are loads of scammers on there

breadlinebetty

Gumtree is renowned for scammers - many who originate in Lagos.

Spareroom.co.uk has a very good reputation for safety measures - probably the best one going.

joolsybools

Yep, I'll second spareroom. You can't guarantee what sort of @rsehol£ you will end up living with though. We once found a lodger through them and the minute he turned up at the door with his carload of possessions I knew we had made a mistake. Desparate times though!

sunnyd

i would second suggestion of moveflat - have found several flatmates on there over the years, and seems to attract more reliable types vs. gumtree. £500 per month should be ample as long as you are not expecting to live in zone 1 or any super-desirable area

sunnyd

and think about taking a friend with you to look at rooms - you are going into a stranger's home after all