The Last 5 Years

I arrived as a fresh faced youngster (ish!) in London in 2010 and found a room to rent in Maida Hill for £670 a month, all bills included. 

Granted it cost me 50% of my salary and didn't have any communal space other than the kitchen, which didn't stop me from trying to have film evenings - I just had balance a laptop on a chair,  turn up the volume louder than the sound of cooking and ignore any potential protests from my flatmates not taking part about not wanting to hear a Bollywood soundtrack whilst they were eating.

But it was a double room, in a lovely area, inhabited by an endless stream of unusual, friendly and fascinating flatmares from various EU countries and it was where I found my London feet.

5 years on and I'm curious to see what I would find in the area for £670 a month now.

So a quick check on SpareRoom shows me 23 listings as per this evening (28/3/15) for £670 a month.  Plenty of choice right?  Well all is not as it seems....

- Some are located in Queens Park  (will rule them out simply because I want to compare the same area, then and now)
 - One is a "room wanted" ad (Two Muslim sisters)
  - One is Monday to Friday let.  My 5 year younger self was often busy at the weekends exploring London but I still needed somewhere to return to and sleep.
- One ad looks like it might be a scam (£500 a month including bills for a room in a 3 story townhouse and a photo that looks like it's from a stock site)

Of the remaining there are 3 room shares:

1. £533 a month to share a room with "another lady" in a 6 bedroom flat, thought 3 of the 6 rooms are double occupancy. 

2. £511 a month "just for males" to share a "cozy" twin room.  That rules me out then.   Would be in the same flat as above.

3. £476 a month for a studio flat with 0 bedrooms! There's a mezzanine level for 1 tenant and then the main part of the flat for the other tenant to sleep.

And the rest are single occupancy rooms:

1. £600 a month to share a 5 bed flat near Warwick Avenue. 

2. £550 a month for a room in a 2 bed flat off Harrow Road, including bills. 

3. £585 + £100 a month bills (tips me over my budget limit)

4. £650 a month sharing a 3 bed flat with 2 flatmates and a family dog.  I've had canine housemates before but ruled out a family atmosphere when I moved to London as I was moving out of my Mum and Dad's place and was keen to have a bit of independence and not end up with someone else's Mum and Dad.

5. £650 flat + £30 bills, just creeping over my limit.

6. £650 a month for a room in a 3 bed flat, all bills included.  Bargain!

7. £650 a month + £60 bills + £200 agency fee for a contract that ends in 4 months time.  Doesn't sound like a bargain to me.

8. £650 in a shared flat in Westbourne Park.

9. £600 a month sharing with 3 others.

10. £620 for a rather small looking room in a 6 bed flat - would be a great way to meet a lot of people though.

11. Room for rent but Arab/Asian female or couple preferred.

12. £620 a month to share a 6 bedroom flat with 8 people.

So my conclusion is that there are still plenty of options out there for my younger self (though bills would push the price up).  But how many other youngsters would I be competing with?  No easy way to tell from a computer...

Rooms, Rogues and Renters

Interesting short documentary on BBC London yesterday about renting in the capital.

With elections looming you'd think that housing might be a bit more on MPs radars.  Until you learn thatup to 30% of MPs are landlords and are hardly going to to put any laws in place that might damage their main source of income.

Link to the show here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05nv2zw

Islington Council bans tiny bedsit

During my sporadic posts on this blog along with my own experiences looking for flats in the capital I have seen several very tiny bedsits advertised online.

So the fact that a landlord in Islington was charging £737 for this flat did not surprise me at all. What did surprise me was the amount of publicity it generated.  Clearly there are people in London who have no idea how expensive and difficult it is to rent a home in the capital.

I suppose that once the flat had done the rounds on social media Islington Council felt that it was best to put a stop to any bad publicity.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jun/05/tiny-apartment-taken-off-the-market-by-islington-borough-council

Agency Fees

At the start of the tenancy in my new flat we had to hand over about £500 in agency fees.  That's a non-refundable sum on top of the deposit and first months rent that we also had to pay.

Given that we were the ones who found the flat on Right Move, saw no other properties with our agency and decided to take the flat a few days after we first contacted the agency - it did make me wonder what we were paying this huge sum of money for.

However, then came boiler bother! Boiler bother began on Day 1 actually when my Dad noticed that the pressure was too low.  Since then we've had  a boiler man/engineer/technician visit the flat 4 times.  We've also had the handyman come another time or two to fix various things. 

If our hot water cuts out any more times I feel like the agency will have earned that £500.

Generation Rent in the news again

Another flurry of articles about renting in the national newspapers.  Probably because an election is coming up and house prices and rents have continued to skyrocket in London.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/29/general-election-could-hang-on-how-private-tenants-vote

One for boys and one for girls

If you don't mind sharing a room with 3 people you can rent a bed in Romford for £49 a week:

"There are 2 bedrooms with bunk beds one for boys and one for girls."

These are definitely for the girls only:

"I'm 25 male offering my apartment to a female for Free in exchange I'm looking for companionship."

"looking for couples of female roommate in central area"

c/o Gumtree.

Some rather 'unique' flatmates on Gumtree....

 A tenant with an unusual appendage:
"For sharing need to share with 1 person with attached toilet bathroom."

A heroic self-sacrifice from the current tenant:
"Basically I am young professional Male working as barista in central London and would like someone a (FEMALE) to share the room with me,You could have your own separate bed"

The tenants REALLY want to make sure you know where they are from:
"*** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY *** CESKY  "

A flat with a lot a spare bedrooms?
"Being practising CHRISTIANS when boyfriends or girlfriends visit, we use separate rooms overnight.