renting a room in london

babie_gurl

hi everyone can you help please i am looking to move to london in the next 3 weeks , i will have a buget of £600ish a month(the lower the better !)i would like to rent a room with ensuite , any hints or tips ? things for me to check ? websites or threads i should look at ? im going to be a cover manager in retail so i will be looking after sites all over london so i could stay in any area as i will have to travel wherever i stay . also any hints or tips on how to live for less in london ?
any advice is apreciated!
regards
bg

madrhino

I have a friend in a shared house who's looking for a new housemate. No ensuite but large living room, kitchen and garden and 5 minutes walk from tube. Plus a lot cheaper than your budget. I've visited and it's a nice house

https://www.facebook.com/groups/116786031810507/

Kynthia

Have a think about whether you want to be a housemate in a shared house or whether you want to be a lodger living with the landlord. If you are a housemate, check out the contract to see whether you are only responsible for your own room and rent or whether you are on a group tenancy where you are all responsible for the whole property and rent. A shared contract means that if someone doesn't pay the LL will chase all of you and all of your deposits are at risk if one person does damage. Beware being asked to pay your deposit to a departing tenant, you should only pay your deposit to the landlord or agent and get a receipt (and the deposit protection info if you aren't a lodger).

London is massive and, if you include Greater London, it can take three hours to get from one side to the other. Therefore you need to have a bit of an idea of where you will be working and want to live.

babie_gurl

madrhino wrote: »

I have a friend in a shared house who's looking for a new housemate. No ensuite but large living room, kitchen and garden and 5 minutes walk from tube. Plus a lot cheaper than your budget. I've visited and it's a nice house

https://www.facebook.com/groups/116786031810507/

thanks i will look at this !

babie_gurl

Kynthia wrote: »

Have a think about whether you want to be a housemate in a shared house or whether you want to be a lodger living with the landlord. If you are a housemate, check out the contract to see whether you are only responsible for your own room and rent or whether you are on a group tenancy where you are all responsible for the whole property and rent. A shared contract means that if someone doesn't pay the LL will chase all of you and all of your deposits are at risk if one person does damage. Beware being asked to pay your deposit to a departing tenant, you should only pay your deposit to the landlord or agent and get a receipt (and the deposit protection info if you aren't a lodger).

London is massive and, if you include Greater London, it can take three hours to get from one side to the other. Therefore you need to have a bit of an idea of where you will be working and want to live.

thanks i know nothing of sharing so this is very good advice ! especialy about the deposit! i will hopefully know next week which store i will be based in so this will be the one i will spend the most time in will update when i find out ive looked at tube passes do you think it would be worth while buying a monthly or yearly tube pass ? i would like to use this oppotunity to explore london so i think it might work out cheeper this way ?

Nan_Dingle

i am looking to move to london in the next 3 weeks

Exciting!

http://www.moveflat.com/
http://www.spareroom.co.uk
Gumtree (prob. need to share with Aussies though!).

I was a lodger in Southwark a few years back, and even then £600 wouldn't get a private bathroom, so expect to stay a way out or pay more. It's a trade off between ££ vs. living in a dodgy area.

Getting an annual Travelcard certainly makes sense.

http://www.meetup.com/ is good for events (not too much emphasis on singles)

any hints or tips on how to live for less in london ?

Yep, don't go out for meals and drinks!

Obviously it's London, so practice 'blanking' everyone, tut-tutting about the tourists getting in the way, religiously read the Metro/Standard on the tube, say 'cor blimey!'...

Kynthia

You can google lots of different websites such as spareroom.co.uk and easyroommate.com.

I've not really got any experience of renting a room but I'd imagine finding somewhere with people you are likely to get on with is important. Maybe try to meet everyone that lives there, see how they live and treat the place, what the do for a living, etc. Do they get on and socialise with each other, do they have regular parties, smoke, play loud music, etc.

Also the area is quite important, like the transport links, crime rates and amenities. If you don't have a car you want to be able to walk to a few places like a convenience store, or a newsagents and off-license, maybe a pub or take-away. Do you need to think about parking or somewhere to lock up your bike?

budgetexpat

Hello, I'm a relatively new-ish transplant to London myself(been here more than a year but some days, I still feel like a total naive newbie, lol). I've used spareroom to find a room to rent before and thought it was okay. You have to pay to contact some of the postings though and the people advertising the rooms themselves also have to pay, though I guess this is supposed to discourage fake or dodgy postings like what I've experienced on gumtree before(where it turned out the "room" I was viewing was in a dirty hostel and not an actual sharehouse! :eek: ).

Since you have to travel so much, you'd probably want to live near a Tube station. Some lines are more reliable than others, especially if you have to work weekends. If you look at tfl.gov.uk's weekend announcements, you'll eventually get a sense of which lines seem to fall apart at the drop of a leaf(hint: District and Circle lines, lol).

Victoria, Jubilee and certain sections of the Northern line always seem to need downtime for repairs on a regular basis too, though that said, I did come from a place where trains only came around 2 or 3 times an hour and also broke down frequently on weekends and had crappy bus services that weren't within walking distance anyway(i.e. Sydney's outer suburbs), so the Tube and London buses seemed a hundred times more efficient when I first arrived though I now take it for granted and whinge about it very often now that I've gotten used to it, haha :rotfl:

Sharehouse interviews in London can be ridiculous sometimes. Some places are weirdly competitive and may reject you on the basis that you don't seem "cool" enough, though I guess it's their house/their rules or whatever. That said, there are still a lot of unexpectedly lovely people in London who pay their bills on time and will make you feel welcome! So come with a positive energy, be open and friendly though assertive and stay true to yourself.

You can still find an ensuite in a decent flat for your budget limit, though it'll most likely be in Zone 3, and you may be living with at least 3 to 4 other people. One of my friends lives in a very central location(Marylebone which is in Zone 1) and has her own room large enough to fit a double bed and a decent-sized clothes wardrobe for £650 pcm, however she shares an ancient, unglamourous-looking flat with 5 other people and they all share the 1 bathroom. Luckily, they all get along quite well and even go out some nights together so she's very happy where she is now. In the past, she's had nightmare flatmates who have skipped out on bills and/or chores or even stole items from her room.

As for other tips to live less in London, I've found that there are sooo many free exhibitions, concerts and other random events here that you can indeed be very well-entertained without needing to spend money!

Travelling during peak times on the Tube(7:30am-9:30am and 5:00pm to 6:30pm) is quite miserable. Not sure what your shifts will be like or if you'll have a kitchen at the stores you have to cover, but try to bring lunch/snacks or maybe even sandwiches for dinner to work. I tend to either leave for work a little early and leave a bit later(7pm) to avoid the madness, or negotiate a later start with my boss on some days(10am). I try to avoid spending money on take-aways(also, to avoid weight gain!), so I usually bring food to have for breakfast/lunch/snacks/dinner to work, which is another money-saver.

Sharehousing is always a bit of lottery - wishing you the best of luck that you find a lovely new place in London and great flatmates who will also become good friends to enjoy this exciting city with! :wave:

chuckley

i dont even understand why ppl always recommend ppl live on tube lines. My goodness that's my idea of HELL! Its more expensive as u have direct links and your basing your whole being on 'fast commute to work'. get out where its a 15 min train into a mainline station, then take it from there. it's much cheaper and at least u can breathe rather constantly on this 'wake up - commute - work - commute - bed'.

Having said that i've seen a lot of ensuites around the 'east dulwich/nunhead' area for around 700 but then again this is Peckham we talkin about...

sniggings

my tip is to not forget how to pronounce the "th" sound, as this seems to be too much trouble for them down south

Lizling

chuckley wrote: »

i dont even understand why ppl always recommend ppl live on tube lines. My goodness that's my idea of HELL! Its more expensive as u have direct links and your basing your whole being on 'fast commute to work'. get out where its a 15 min train into a mainline station, then take it from there. it's much cheaper and at least u can breathe rather constantly on this 'wake up - commute - work - commute - bed'.

I agree. Don't overlook areas with good transport links that happen not to be on the tube lines because some of the normal stations are very good. E.g where I am, I can get a train into Clapham Junction in less than 5 minutes or Waterloo, Victoria or London Bridge in about 15. They're every 4 minutes at rush hour and I'm not paying the 'near the tube' premium.