Is £700 pcm too much for a house share?

electro431

I'm considering a double room in a 4-bedroom house share. It's in London Zone 4 and is around a 45 min commute from my workplace. The price of £700 per month includes all bills, council tax and broadband + a sky box. It's a renovated Victorian house that looks really nice inside. It has one bathroom between 3 people, with the fourth person having her own bathroom.

I thought it was a decent price, but my dad is telling me that I should try to find a room around £500-£600 all inclusive and that £700 is waaaaaaaay too much to be paying for a room.

Thoughts? I could do with a nice house, but at the same time I don't want to get ripped off. I was set on getting the £700 room but now i'm starting to think I should keep searching for something cheaper. Let's say my earnings are irrelevant, is the £700 house good value for money or would I be getting ripped off?

Cheers

theartfullodger

Do you have a piece of string?

Rambosmum

I think it sounds fine, my friend was paying £900 all in in Balham (zone 3) and another friend £700 excluding bills in zone 3.

shortcrust

Dads are well known for wincing and looking pained when you tell them the cost of things. Has your dad recently been looking at house shares in London? If not then it’s likely you know more than he does about the current market. What are similar places going for? What’s available for 500 to 600?

For a bit of context, someone near me in Sheffield is currently advertising an all inc. room for 400. Next to that 700 in London doesn’t look like a lot and 500 looks delusional.

juniordoc

It doesn't sound awful value for London considering it includes all bills, sure you can probably find somewhere for 600 that's as nice.
London is a falling market price-wise so you're in a good position to negotiate. Try offerring 670 pcm and see what they say, if it's empty and you can move quickly they may be keen to get you in.
Good luck!

Fosterdog

For London it’s probably not too bad especially if it’s a nice house. My brother was paying £500pm including bills in Bristol but had restrictions on certain things like when he could use the washing machine, only allowed visitors at certain times etc.

[Deleted User]

Sounds about right to me - I pay just under that in Brighton!

leslieknope

sounds about right for london tbh

Marvel1

From the title I thought how much! :eek: That's 3.5 times more than my mortgage and I have a whole house to myself.

Then read the location, probably seems right, however is the one with their own bathroom paying more?

bouicca21

When did your dad last try renting a room in zone 4? Must have been a very long time ago.

[Deleted User]

I use to pay £500 a month for a flat share, and it was horrible. It was also 10 years ago in zone 3.

Considering it's got all bills included, it's not too bad - if you want cheaper, you can find it though.

However, it took me a few minutes to find one for £600pm - https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/flatshare_detail.pl?flatshare_id=8882662&search_id=554996545&city_id=&flatshare_type=offered&search_results=%2Fflatshare%2F%3Fsearch_id%3D554996545%26&