Looking to rent a flat in London - please help and join the hunt if you want :)

devotee

westlondonbuyer wrote: »

Shepherd's Bush has brilliant transport links, but is simultaneously extremely expensive and really scuzzy in parts. For your budget, you'd only be able to afford a flat in the very worst streets.

You probably don't want to do this, but would you consider a flatshare? Plenty of couples live this way in the centre of London, though I accept it's not the lifestyle you'd ideally want. Flatsharing brings your costs down very substantially, both rent and bills. You can rent a 4 bed house in a leafy street for around £2000, whereas a 1 bed flat in the same street would rent for around £1200 ex bills. Hammersmith & Fulham's council tax is hideous; between four flatmates, it seems almost reasonable.

I live in neighbouring Hammersmith and know both areas very well so feel free to run specific streets by me if you wish.

I was going to suggest flatshare as you'd be killing each other in a small studio after a while!

Try Ealing council tax, Hammersmith's tax is so much cheaper!

prudryden

Ealing is in big demand right now. In Ealing 1 1/2 bed flat going for @1,100/mo. Council tax will probably be either £1,370/yr. for band D or £1,674/yr. band E. If lucky, might get band C = £1,217/yr. payable over 10 months. Gas/Electric - perhaps £1,200/yr. Water depends if on rateable value, average usage, or meter. Max on rateable value perhaps £460/yr. Only slight difference between furnished, part furnished, and unfurnished. Parking permit only $40 unless have off street parking.

czerniacha

we are doing houseshare for 3 years now and that's what we want to change... I want to have the kitchen for myself and I like things clean and tidy which not everyone does... It's hard to find people you can live with and not hate them after a while...

well, I hope I'll just be lucky and manage to find something as nice and cheap as possible... but will not go over the board as it's probably gonna be for couple of years so I want to live somewhere nice too...:o

debrag

We pay:
£100 CT
£60 Utilities
£12 TV
£48 Phone, digitial, internet etc
£10 insurance
£650 rent

We live zone 4 SE London and are lucky to find a flat for under £700.

To move in we paid:
1 months rent
6 weeks deposit
removeals

How about living futher out: Brent, Northolt etc Just factor in the change in rent & travel costs. I know someone living in Ruislip.

czerniacha

Yeah, I guess I'll have to look at something further out too if I won't find anything suitable closer...
So are the monthly bills around the 200GBP mark then(one couple, at work all workdays, no tv, probably no phone, one half MSE obsessed LOL)?
However I'll see how my jobsearch will go and what salary I'll get and if it will be nice I might go for 1200 incl.
what are removeals?(sorry:o)
thanks everyone for helping :A:A:A

edinburgher

what are removeals?(sorry)

I imagine the poster meant 'removals' (as in the cost of hiring a removal firm if needed, or a van if you're happy to move your own possessions).

czerniacha

Thanks

I guess we will be happy to do it ourselves. No furniture whatsoever, just LOADS of stuff from mr T and two cars to do it...

thequant

czerniacha wrote: »

we are doing houseshare for 3 years now and that's what we want to change... I want to have the kitchen for myself and I like things clean and tidy which not everyone does... It's hard to find people you can live with and not hate them after a while...

well, I hope I'll just be lucky and manage to find something as nice and cheap as possible... but will not go over the board as it's probably gonna be for couple of years so I want to live somewhere nice too...:o

Ahh so you can't afford a place of your own where you live now, but have decided to move to London because "I can earn much more money then I do now ". But as your discovering, you can't afford down here aswell.

Thers a reason why rents and wages in London are higher, it's because they are purely a function of each other.

It's seem like that you are unable earn enough money for your given skillset and education. I would suggest you try upgrading these rather than uprooting yourself and moving across the country.

edinburgher

It's seem like that you are unable earn enough money for your given skillset and education. I would suggest you try upgrading these rather than uprooting yourself and moving across the country.

Without knowing all the facts, we can't be sure that this is the case.

My OH and I moved to London because we had both qualified as librarians and there were no jobs in central Scotland where we lived. We both had good undergraduate degrees, postgraduate diplomas and relevant work experience.

We couldn't afford to live in Scotland because there were no reasonably paid jobs, not because we didn't have the skills to earn enough (if there were jobs).

Also, reasons the OP will be finding it a bit costly include a) the fact that her OH isn't working and b) the fact that she wants to be in Zone 2, which is dearer than some of the less fashionable locations we stayed in.

westlondonbuyer

I have an undergraduate and a postgraduate degree. I could have won a Nobel prize and there would still be no jobs in my home town - if you didn't work for your Dad, you worked in the soap factory.

OP, London is all about deferred gratification. You move here for work and for opportunities you don't have in your home town. You live in a flatshare, grit your teeth, work as hard as you can and save as much as you can.

Eventually you meet someone, who has hopefully been similarly prudent. You take your joint savings - and hopefully a few pay rises - and use them as a deposit on your first one-bed home, a little further out.

You carry on working hard and saving hard and chasing pay rises whilst living in your cramped one bed flat until you have kids, when you move out of London altogether.

The shoebox you had in the outskirts of London then ends up buying you something very nice indeed (more often than not, near your parents in the home town you couldn't wait to escape).