Renting in London

jobytc

Hi,

My girlfriend and I have split up and I'm currently looking to move out of our falt in East London and rent a place of my own. My current monthly rent is £447 + £106 per month on council tax. My girlfriend covered all of the other bills.

I would like to move to a nice part of London with plenty of bars and restaurants. I'm prepared for the fact that I'm going to need to pay considerably more but there are also savings I can make like single-person discount on CT and lower transport costs (moving from zone 3 into zone 1 or 2). I could probably stretch to £200 pw (inclusive of bills!) without putting myself into financial difficulty.

I'm getting quite demoralised by looking on websites like the gumtree for single person studios or one bedroom flats. Lots of studio flats are really bedsits and the only one-person flats that are in my price range are in quite grotty areas.

Can anybody give me any advice about where I should be looking to find a selection of nice flats and any other ideas for how I could cut down on my expenses as much as possible.

thank you so much!

Joby

noyk

Do you really need central london? It is the most expensive area in the country! Have you considered sharing, i shared a house in Richmond a few years ago for very reasonable rent where i had a very very large room and apart from kitchen and bathroom which i shared with two very nice house mates it was pretty much self contained.
Alternatively, before that i rented a 1 bed flat in Hampstead Village in north london, 20 mins to oxford street or 25 to city parts. Great place, i'd love to live there again - it seems for 750pcm you can get a 1 bed flat - http://www.rightmove.co.uk/search.rsp?lo_u=87509&lo_n=Hampstead%2C+North+West+London&se_c=1&poi_e=0&poi_n=0&stc_s=false&tr_t=rent&pa_n=4&re_s=price&eventsubmit_dosearch=1&initial_search_time=1160593270939

MascaraMinx

£750 for a 1 bed flat in Hampstead??? I think you'd need to look carefully at that, Hampstead borders some less exclusive areas, you'd probably find yourself smack bang in the middle of Kilburn or somewhere at that price.

I think realistically you are probably looking at a studio for that kind of money in Central London. You might find something a tad bigger on the Isle of Dogs had you considered that area?

liz545

jobytc wrote:

Hi,

My girlfriend and I have split up and I'm currently looking to move out of our falt in East London and rent a place of my own. My current monthly rent is £447 + £106 per month on council tax. My girlfriend covered all of the other bills.

I would like to move to a nice part of London with plenty of bars and restaurants. I'm prepared for the fact that I'm going to need to pay considerably more but there are also savings I can make like single-person discount on CT and lower transport costs (moving from zone 3 into zone 1 or 2). I could probably stretch to £200 pw (inclusive of bills!) without putting myself into financial difficulty.

I'm getting quite demoralised by looking on websites like the gumtree for single person studios or one bedroom flats. Lots of studio flats are really bedsits and the only one-person flats that are in my price range are in quite grotty areas.

Can anybody give me any advice about where I should be looking to find a selection of nice flats and any other ideas for how I could cut down on my expenses as much as possible.

thank you so much!

Joby

Hi Joby,

For your budget, you'll probably find studios and smallish 1 beds are easiest to find, I'd start looking around Camden, Kings Cross, Kennington, Southwark, Elephant & Castle, Paddington, Pimlico, Stoke Newington, Hoxton or Hackney. If you don't mind looking a bit further out, maybe Clapham or Stockwell? With London, one person's vibrant is another person's grotty, so there's no substitution for going for a recce with a digital camera!