Renting in London. Advice please

sarahluv

oh and it takes me 40 mins to get home on the nightbus. i travel home alone, and i've never had a problem.

bandraoi

sarahluv wrote: »

i'm in zone 3, it takes me 45 mins door to door to get to work, allowing for stopping off to get a coffee. i pay £450 a month including bills for a huge room.

I'm in zone 2, within walking distance of zone 1.
I pay £400 a month including the council tax.
Personally I wouldn't go out much further, but I place a high value on not commuting and a lower value on space around me and space in the house. She may not. The area is a bit grotty, though there are distinct signs of improvement, but the flat itself is nice.

The first thing she needs to look at is getting to work.
How does she plan to do it, does she need to be in at 9am?
Can she cope with the tube at rush hour? How long is she willing to spend commuting?
Has she included £93pcm for her zone 1/2 fare in her budget, I find that a real killer. Does her £600pcm include bills and council tax? Split 4 ways ours is £36.25 a month each, and that's cheap.

A house share is definitly the way to go. I've always found estate agents to be a bit useless, and I think the best houses go before they get anywhere near EA windows.

Gumtree is good, there are a few other sites around, but I'm not sure which are popular right now.

sarahluv

and also, the zones can be very misleading. eg. i work in westminster, so if i lived in zone 2 north london, it would take me the same amount of time to get in as it does at the minute from zone 3 south london.

if her work offr a travel season ticket loan, she should take it. i pay £88 a month for zne 1-3 as the loan meant i could afford to buy a yearly pass.

NOWSE

Thanks to all that have offered advice and good wishes. My daughter has found this thread really useful. She went for her first viewing tonight but is still looking

sarahluv

and my room is still available

roses

I would recommend gumtree for houseshares as well. She should be able to find somewhere nice quite easily in zone 2 for £600/month including bills

wolvoman

A room in my house (Zone 3, SE London) is now available. Has an en-suite too - well under the budget.

Hope that helps

patrick1

I've rented in London for the past 10 years. Gumtree is definitely the place to go these days - use of Loot and estate agents is dwindling.

I think she's best off going for a shared flat - she can always move if she doesn't like it.

I've lived all over London - Pimlico (central), Hackney (east), Mile End (east) and various places in South London. I don't think it makes much of a difference where you live - my main criteria is always being within 5 mins walk of a tube or train station (or bus station if it's very central).

She would be very lucky to get a whole flat/bedsit for £600/month in Camden - if she did it'd be awful. Go for a flatshare in the meantime - £600 is at the upper end of flat shares. Flat sharing also works out a lot cheaper as you're sharing bills.

If she's in WC2 then she should also consider south places like Kennington, Waterloo, Lambeth North and Elephant and Castle - they're really close on the tube or bus and are likely to be better value.
Camden is fine if you can be bothered to put up with all the drug pushers when you leave Camden tube station (it's much like Brixton in that sense).

Generali

patrick1 wrote: »

I've rented in London for the past 10 years. Gumtree is definitely the place to go these days - use of Loot and estate agents is dwindling.

I think she's best off going for a shared flat - she can always move if she doesn't like it.

I've lived all over London - Pimlico (central), Hackney (east), Mile End (east) and various places in South London. I don't think it makes much of a difference where you live - my main criteria is always being within 5 mins walk of a tube or train station (or bus station if it's very central).

She would be very lucky to get a whole flat/bedsit for £600/month in Camden - if she did it'd be awful. Go for a flatshare in the meantime - £600 is at the upper end of flat shares. Flat sharing also works out a lot cheaper as you're sharing bills.

If she's in WC2 then she should also consider south places like Kennington, Waterloo, Lambeth North and Elephant and Castle - they're really close on the tube or bus and are likely to be better value.
Camden is fine if you can be bothered to put up with all the drug pushers when you leave Camden tube station (it's much like Brixton in that sense).

Ah but the difference is that Camden is full of middle-class student druggies that will go on to become barristers and accountants whereas Brixton is full of horrid working class druggies, some of whom will never be in a proper profession and some of whom aren't even white!

butterfly72

Try: http://www.spareroom.co.uk