Is flat hunting still so bad?

18 comments

1. Its not great out there, I’d start asking mates if they wanna be flatmates.

2. Landlord served me a Section 21 in November 2023, had to leave by February 2024. Was away for Christmas got back in Jan, no flats available without crazy landlords near my area. Panicked, got an Airbnb for 3 months, went broke, moved home in June after bumming around friend’s couches. Don’t make the same mistake I made 😂 London rental market is not for the weak hearted (or for those with lots of items / furniture). Start early and take whatever you can. Mold is temporary and you can’t put a price for sanity with a roof over your head.

3. Start making friends bro, otherwise expect to be disappointed

4. Start looking 2 months early

5. One more piece of advice, use your imagination when looking at pictures of places and try to impress the landlord (🤮 I know)

   Ive got a £1350/mo one bed in Crouch End I found two years ago with my wife. At the time we thought we would have to live in Catford and places were looking bleak even there. We had no idea Crouch End was so nice and the pictures made the flat look worse than it actually was. When we visited and loved it, we sent in a small biography about ourselves. We weren’t asked to do this but I had heard it helped, and sure enough we immediately got accepted in a time where I heard people were literally bidding on how much rent over the listed price they would pay.

   The place had issues with moisture in the kitchen, but we just bought an electric dehumidifier and it fixed it, no more mould.

6. From my experience with people I know, it’s the worst it’s ever been right now

7. Oh yes, it’s fucking bad dude

8. Use SpareRoom to find a nice house share if you want something that won’t hurt your wallet and that looks nice, in a good area, obvious downside is not getting along with your housemates.

   I’d say give yourself plenty of time to find something and also as somebody already commented, use your imagination! We move to Camden a few years ago and the place looked like a dive and had been listed for 6+ months because it was so badly photographed but it was £1,150 for a 2 bed with shared garden, playground, allotments and court. They only increased it to £1,400 recently because all the flats in our building are listed for £2K+

9. It’s going to get worse when the students start looking for places too in September.

10. It’s bad, migration to the city hasn’t been this high ever, rent and house building will never keep up and technically it’s going to get worse YOY.

    Sort things as early as possible! 2-3 months head of any leaving dates.

    One little tip that may not help but to anyone reading this thread – new for rent builds, go to the builders websites, you can get advanced viewings, secure rooms for small prices. On average you’ll have better chances than spare room and all the other websites etc. (1 beds are pricey though, maybe better for 2/3 people).

    Best of luck!!

11. The experience seems to vary based on the estate agent you end up dealing with. Dexters and Foxtons are ones to avoid if at all possible.

    My tips would be to find decide the area/budget, start looking 2-3months in advance, setup saved searches and email notifications with Zoopla/Rightmove and then when you start to see properties that fit the bill but that might be available too early call the estate agent and tell them “I want this kind of thing, but from October”.

    Another tip would be to **call** estate agents – email is far too slow and easy to ignore.

    Just to provide you with a bit of hope, I recently found a property (Z3) offered under the asking price and was accepted without needing to send them my life story or pay 6 month in advance.

12. Flat sharing will be the next route.

    Otherwise move out of London and commute in. Overall costs might be similar with commuting but you’ll get a nicer place

13. I more or less rage quit the country as a result of my last flat search in London.

    Also hi from NYC 

14. I moved two months ago to SW and it was surprisingly easy. I was bracing myself for a nightmare situation but everything went pretty smooth. I viewed three flats, I didn’t like the first two, and I put an in offer on the third and had it accepted. 

    The estate agents from the first two actually both rang me up offering me other flats, which I’ve never had before. I’m not sure if I was just lucky, or it was a good time of year to move, but it wasn’t that bad.

15. “Still so bad” did you have hopes for it getting better? I’m so sorry

16. Its worse now.

17. I’ve just moved to a new place. It was definitely a hectic and intense experience but I think it can be manageable.

    If you’re open to it I’d definitely recommend using SpareRoom and OpenRent.

    I’d recommend paying for the upgraded account on spare room and having email notifications for various searches turned on as well as regularly refreshing and checking your searches. Being one of the first to message about a room, particularly a nice one, is absolutely key.

    Reach out to anything and everything that catches your eye. If recommend keeping your opening messages brief but make sure you have an indepth profile and accompanying advert.

    You’re more likely to be invited to a viewings by current Tennant’s if you have an established profile. Estate agents will accept anything though. Build a profile kind of like you would on a dating app. (Looking for long term rather than hookups). Talk about interests, hobbies, what you look for in a flatmate and want from a shared living environment etc.

    As others have mentioned the key is to give yourself plenty of time as several flats will slip through your fingers in the process but you can minimise the stress of this by knowing there’s still time.

    If possible I’d also suggest being willing to take time off work to do viewings. While a shame to use it for such a mundane task, it’ll give you more flexibility and might give you the advantage. The flat I landed this time around was one of 7 viewings I saw after landing back in London from holiday.

    You may also want to ensure you have some way of straddling two sets of rent in case of a worst case scenario where there is crossover. While it is key to give yourself plenty of time, most places on SpareRoom are looking for immediate or imminent move in dates which makes looking too far in advance tricky.

    This is all just from my personal experiences and I’m in no way an expert but I hope this can still be helpful.

18. General advice, get chatty with the estate agent. Try to be their friend. I swear my friend and I got our flat two years ago because we struck up a conversation with the estate agent that day.

    I’ve also never tried this, but when all else fails, there’s bribery.