Renting in Belfast

heavysnow

Horses for courses really. If you want to have a better house, access to the beach and less dodgy areas to worry about, then Bangor is the place. I actually think that Bangor is much better than most large towns for bars. Of course it's nowhere near as good as Belfast, but there are loads of pubs down High Street - most of them have lovely beer gardens out the back as well - Donegans and Jenny Watts are especially good. My local - the Esplanade - looks right out over the Irish Sea across to the Antrim coast and Scotland on a clear day. There's nothing like sitting out at the front of the bar on a warm Summer evening watching the yachts sailing by - not many places you can do that in Belfast :A

In terms of the commute, it can be pretty bad at rush hour but if you can delay heading into work until 9am, it only takes 20 mins or so to drive up to Belfast. There is always the train as well - the express train takes just 20 mins in the morning :j

I am biased though coming from Bangor

belfastgirl23

nozzadamozza wrote: »

Hi Everyone- so day 2 of my search continues....and thank you all very much..(I feel liking going on mastermind now with my indepth knowledge of the rental market in belfast lol)
one of the biggest problem I have found is that estate agents dont remove sale agreed listings- so some of the houses I was interested in yesterday and asked opinions on(Holland Crescent, Florida Drive,Woodbreda Drive) had been let but didnt say so on the web...grrrr (even when you search for 'for rent' on property news)

Its also quite surprising the prices of some places (due to this site I am a tightwad ) I dont really want to pay anything more than £570 (am ideally looking for three bedroom, semi detached house), which I think is reasonable for outside the city centre/Lisburn Road but its amazing the prices of some places...this may me laugh yesterday - its a steal at £450 a month but you need to decorate it !!!!!(now I am looking unfurnished but I was hoping for a lick of pain on the walls)- link here- you are all invited up to the house warming / decorating party lol

So have a list of some properties and I think we are definitely looking at many of the areas you have suggested..so my plan is to go through my list, phone up estate agents, bother you good people with more questions and then hubby and I have decided we are going to go on a re-con mission to belfast next week-and actually go around these areas

But all suggestions are welcome- and thank you all again..its fantastic to have so much advice:)

Why not phone around the EAs, tell them your situation and that you're respectable married people moving in from out of town who own your own home and know how to look after a place, willing to sign a lease for xx months, tell them your budget and what you're looking for and see what they offer you? You might find they're desperate enough to rent places that they'll come down a bit. I'd start at just over 500 if I were you. Why not let them do the work? They have little enough to do at the minute from what I hear. Three sales in two months in an agency I heard of lately....

tara747

heavysnow wrote: »

Horses for courses really. If you want to have a better house, access to the beach and less dodgy areas to worry about, then Bangor is the place. I actually think that Bangor is much better than most large towns for bars. Of course it's nowhere near as good as Belfast, but there are loads of pubs down High Street - most of them have lovely beer gardens out the back as well - Donegans and Jenny Watts are especially good. My local - the Esplanade - looks right out over the Irish Sea across to the Antrim coast and Scotland on a clear day. There's nothing like sitting out at the front of the bar on a warm Summer evening watching the yachts sailing by - not many places you can do that in Belfast :A

In terms of the commute, it can be pretty bad at rush hour but if you can delay heading into work until 9am, it only takes 20 mins or so to drive up to Belfast. There is always the train as well - the express train takes just 20 mins in the morning :j

I am biased though coming from Bangor

How much is the train? Living in Belfast you are likely to be able to walk to work, whereas you'd need to factor your commuting costs from Bangor into your calculations. Any cheaper rent will probably be more than offset by rail fares. Good luck OP!

Thanks for the info on the nightlife heavysnow.

RooBee

http://www.watsonpropertysales.com/wb_WatsonDotNet/browse/Property.aspx?Property_ID=853

Maybe a bit more than you want to pay but I live near here and can vouch for how nice/quiet the street is. Close to 2 bus routes (18/19 & 4A), very near Connswater, Bloomfield, Ballyhackamore etc.

The 'TO LET' sign has been up for a while so may be some room for negotiation?

jenny-wren

I've just been up to the Four Winds area of Newtownbreda and spotted a very nice house to rent in Coolpark Avenue through Belvoir Lettings. It's a good size 3 bedroom semi with a garden. I know the area well having been brought up there and can highly recommend it (so much so that I'm thinking of moving back to the area myself!)

The property doesn't seem to be listed on the Belvoir Lettings website tho - perhaps it's a new rental property. I'm not sure of how much it would cost to rent.

Hope you get something sorted out.

JoseChungsDoomsday

the best place is look is gumtree IMO - a lot less hassle

nozzadamozza

belfastgirl23 wrote: »

Why not phone around the EAs, tell them your situation and that you're respectable married people moving in from out of town who own your own home and know how to look after a place, willing to sign a lease for xx months, tell them your budget and what you're looking for and see what they offer you? You might find they're desperate enough to rent places that they'll come down a bit. I'd start at just over 500 if I were you. Why not let them do the work? They have little enough to do at the minute from what I hear. Three sales in two months in an agency I heard of lately....

Thanks belfastgirl23- great idea- will call them tomorrow:T

nozzadamozza

RooBee wrote: »

http://www.watsonpropertysales.com/wb_WatsonDotNet/browse/Property.aspx?Property_ID=853

Maybe a bit more than you want to pay but I live near here and can vouch for how nice/quiet the street is. Close to 2 bus routes (18/19 & 4A), very near Connswater, Bloomfield, Ballyhackamore etc.

The 'TO LET' sign has been up for a while so may be some room for negotiation?

Maybe worth me contacting them tomorrow- thanks RooBee:T

nozzadamozza

jenny-wren wrote: »

I've just been up to the Four Winds area of Newtownbreda and spotted a very nice house to rent in Coolpark Avenue through Belvoir Lettings. It's a good size 3 bedroom semi with a garden. I know the area well having been brought up there and can highly recommend it (so much so that I'm thinking of moving back to the area myself!)

The property doesn't seem to be listed on the Belvoir Lettings website tho - perhaps it's a new rental property. I'm not sure of how much it would cost to rent.

Hope you get something sorted out.

Will give them a ring too jenny-wren :T - hope to get something sorted out this week!

nozzadamozza

Hi Everyone

I thought I would give you all an update in regards to our housing mission!

We went up to belfast last Friday and had a look at in total 9 properties that we hoped would fit the bill (years ago when renting, I used to take the first place we found with a roof lol)

Anyway, we were both surprised by how many of the houses were really outdated (I dont mean we are being really choosy, a plain nice house is all we need) and actually not that close to bus lanes.

The first house we went to had a built in mirrored wardrobe in the living room, the second house hadnt been decorated in probably 20 years and we were told we were free to decorate as we pleased (both of these houses were 575 per month)
The third and fourth houses were on holland crescent and again one house was very dated (the old wall paper on the ceiling). The other house we saw, was very nice but quite small. unfortunately both were not close to bus lanes (I try to think, would i like to walk down here on a dark night)

We then went up to Abbey park and whilst the view was amazing, the owner of the house was planning to sell the house (so why have it on the rental market then!!) The next house was pretty close by really well decorated but the land lord wanted to keep it all furnished.

House number 7, we were told at the last minute that we couldnt view it as yet so we went to house number 8 up in donegall Park avenue (who says we dont get around). We got to the door and the estate agent told us that someone had already put in an application to rent this house- again we looked at each other and thought- well why the hell have you brought us here! THe house itself was very nice but as we spoke to the ea, we thought some thing suss was going on. What we picked up was that the landlady was one of those landladys from hell..we were asked too many questions - we were shown a page on what wage we should be on to rent the house (apparantly you need to be on 20000 to rent a house of 650 per month), we were then asked what we did, where we worked, did we smoke, had we any pets- the spanish inquisition. The ea then said a number of people had been interested in the house but they had been 'unsuitable'- one had been on the dole (oh no!!!!), one had no furniture and the third whose application they were currently looking at seemed fine as they both worked. We started to realise too that the landlady must have been picking the renters. NOw I know we were very suitable, oh's wage is very good, we own a house, we have our own business, we have rented before with no problems and we want to rent for 1.5-2 years so that we can then possibly buy. However, we didnt like either the attitude of the estate agent and certainly we didnt want a situation where some Hyacinth Bucket was around on a weekly basis, checking to see if we were behaving!!! Anyway, as far as I saw it the house was already gone as the people that had put in the application seemed right for the house. So she told us to put in an application for the house anyway (!) and we would know by monday if the others had been successful. We didnt put in an application but on Monday afternoon the estate agents called us to say the application had been unsuccessful (had they no blue blood in the family!!) and would we like to apply..I said we were looking at something else, we found more suitable...

And finally our last house, on the upper newtownards road. We saw this house on property news and thought it was really suitable. 3 bedrooms, 2 receptions, 550 per month, unfurnished......well the house was a bit dated but we thought well that still might work, then we found out the land lord owned quite a bit on that part of the road was was waiting for planning permission to knock the houses down to build flats. He could only offer a 3 month agreement and then on a month by month, which is ridiculous. We also were not so anamoured by the mouse traps in every room!!

So now were are back to square one and need to start to look again. We do really want a nice family home that the landlord doesnt plan to sell as soon as they can. We found that alot of the time houses in the east / north are almost as expensive as the south, so it looks like we are almost heading back to the south of the city unless something jumps out today.

So will go through everyones replies again and will keep you posted!!

Thanks again for all the help so far