Help!! Moving to Edinburgh.

Hello all,

New to the boards, but have been reading for a few weeks.  I love all the info here, it has really been a help.  My family and I are moving to Edinburgh in Aug.  My wife is doing a Masters program and U of Edinburgh.  We have a few concerns with getting a place to live there tho.  Have been told that it is really hard to get a place in the city center at that time of year.  Problem is, we are looking at plane tickets over and they would be 1/3 of our years rent just for a house hunting trip. Is moving at the end of July and looking for an apt then out of the question? we won't have a car, so staying close to the city center is pretty important to us.  Also, is there any info on primary schools? I haven't really found any info on schools to avoid. Are there any that are worse then others?

Hope this made some sense, Typing fast while at work =) Any info would be great.

Thanks

Hi Skippy!

Welcome to UK-Yankee

My knowledge extends to Edinburgh in August - I don't think you could pick a busier (or more expensive) time to go... there are about four different festivals ALL going on AT THE SAME TIME... so not only is housing nearly impossible, but just about everything is more costly.  It's a load of fun to visit, but... I wouldn't recommend it for a time to move there.

Any chance of being able to push it back or move it forward?  Or, stay somewhere else until the end of August?

You will find loads of info and friendly people on the board... so have a look around, and I'm sure others who do live around the Edinburgh area will add their knowledge.


Elizabeth

contact the university's Accommodations office right away!  you can find them on their website:  www.ed.ac.uk.

Any chance of being able to push it back or move it forward?  Or, stay somewhere else until the end of August?

Yes.... Pushing it back would be kinda hard, Our daughter would start school Aug. 17th, so we didn't want to start her and need to transfer schools, or have a long commute to and from school.  We are thinking of moving the trip up, but not sure how far we need to, to get a nice place for a reasonable price.  We originally looked at the first week in Aug, but that now looks impossible, but if we get there mid to late July will it be much better?  Should we really spend the $1500 ticket price for a house hunting trip at the end of June?

Ugh, so many options... I sure it will fall into place. Everything on the US side has, house sold in 7 days, got a nice apt here for short term rental. 

We have been in contact with the university, but so far hasn't been a great help. If she were single going over it would be great. They have several dorm type places, but for a family and a kid, just not the best thing... I think.  She is going to e-mail the university again today and see. 

Thanks 

there is family housing, but the problem is it is in high demand and there is a wait list.  priority is also awarded to visiting academic staff, as well, as the high cost of living in edinburgh makes it difficult to attact some academics.

look on the website, b/c it does have some good links for private rentals.

bruntsfield and tollcross are good primary schools.  flora stevenson is as well.

I personally think anything outside the month of August will be better... sorry, that's the extent of my knowledge!

I personally think anything outside the month of August will be better... sorry, that's the extent of my knowledge!

i would agree w/you there.  one of the academics in our department owns a three-bed flat nearby.  he takes the month of august off to go to italy - courtesy of whomever he lets his flat out to, b/c he charges and gets £3,000 for it.

The public transport system is Edinburgh is really good, so it's quite common for people to live there without a car. So you can look at Corstorphone, Murrayfield, Leith, Marchmont, Morningside, Prestonfield and other areas that are a short bus ride to the city centre. There's also a very large student population so the rental market shouldn't be too bad, bear in mind the August rush is usually for very short-term (4 - 6 week) rents due to the festival.

Hi!  My husband and I moved to Edinburgh last year the very beginning of September.  Our lease actually started at the end of August.  We came at the end of June/beginning of July on a flat-hunting trip.  After emailing back and forth with several property managers, we learned that things only come up for rent about 4-8 weeks ahead of time here.  We honestly didn't have a problem finding a flat when we came to visit.  There were plenty available with leases starting in August. 

Are you looking for furnished or unfurnished?  Furnished are much easier to find around here, but also tend to be snapped up more quickly.  We were looking for unfurnished and, although there were not as many, we found that they stayed on the market a little longer. 

It helped us to contact a few property managers and set up appointments before flying over here, although I should warn you that most were uncooperative and we had some "forget" appointments when we showed up in their offices.  We had good luck working with Hadden Rankin.  They don't have properties on their website, but they have properties listed on http://www.espc.com/EspcPublic/UniversalPages/HomePage.aspx  They also sent us a list of their current available properties right before we flew over, so that we were able to set up appointments for specific properties.

I agree with Ian about the public transportation being very good here.  My husband is a lecturer at the University, but we live north of the Royal Mile, in Stockbridge.  It's a 30 minute walk for my husband and, although he has the option of a bus to take him right to campus, he always walks.

We are really cautious folks and didn't want to move over without having a flat already lined up.  But there are so many furnished places that are advertised as being available now, that you may be fine with just moving over.  There are several people in my husband's department who moved straight over into a furnished flat for the two months until their furniture arrived, and used that two months to find a more permanent unfurnished flat.

Thank you all for the info. It has really been helpfull.. We are looking for a furnished apt, it looked to me like there were many more furnished then unfurnished ones and we didn't want to move everything over for just 1 year.  My wife just received an E-Mail from another site that had some great info about neighborhoods on it, I'll repost it here once I get a copy of it.   Glad to hear that there are many furnished flats available right away, Makes the thought of just moving over a fews weeks earlier seem a better choice then I first thought. But, who knows now, Still might make a house hunting trip, Just the cost at that time of year makes it a hard choice.

we didn't want to move everything over for just 1 year. 

very wise!