Short-term lets

I previously was planning to make a trip over to London to look for a flat before moving over, but I now would prefer to find a short let for our first month so that we can take time to find our more permanent place.

The major challenge to this is that we have a cat and a small dog that we will have with us and therefore will have to find a short let that will allow them.  Any chance of finding one?

We would prefer the NW3 area, but I guess we can't be too picky.  What are some good sites/agencies/resources for finding short lets?  My brother is in N London and can look at some places in person to make sure they are OK.

That is tough...  We were in the same situation, but we plan to buy a house.  My partner is already there, but  not in a place that we both could live.  So we were finally able to get a 6 month contract on a place, and that was still pulling nails.  Furnished flats are getting less and less common these days.

We did find that local agents in the area you are looking are the best resources.  Foxton's and some of the bigger letting agents were just useless and most of the places were overpriced.  We were looking in SW2/SW12 and found a great little place with a wonderful landlord who is happy with us for 6 months while we are looking for a house and is suppling us with kitchen wares as well, all through a local agent.

I would talk your brother into going to the highstreet in your ideal area and pop into the local agents and get some cards so you can contact them and find out what they've got.

Personally really short term lets like 1 month are going to be so expensive and so much hassle with references, etc...

I don't know if this is the case in London, but I know in many cities (I looked into this for a trip to Paris) you can rent out flats by the week or month...usually called "self catered accommodation." It's meant for people who are having a long-ish holiday and don't want to stay in a hotel, but I'm guessing a set up like that would be ideal for the newly arrived house-hunting expat.  You wouldn't find places like that through a normal letting agent but probably only the company itself (or websites/search engines geared towards holiday accommodation.) Maybe something to look into.