rental in the UK now im scared!

ok im a bit scared now... i emailed a letting agent and he told me with no credit in the UK i would need 6 months of rent up front on the house and then 2 months of deposit and some other letting fee.. thats not allwong for my dogs deposit....thats alot of money if the rent is 900.00 pounds... is he right? how can anyone afford to rent if they have to put down over 5 grand just to get into a rental?

thanks
K 
 
 

We rented through a private individual - no extra deposits necessary.

We rented through a private individual - no extra deposits necessary.

Yep, we do too. Much nicer. I agree.
Some of the rental agents in our area are EEEVILL! Pulling surprise deposit craplike that, telling a friend of ours he had a house and they'd mail papers for him to sign then renting it to someone else before he can mail the contract back. All sorts of stories. We're in a town with high demand and lots of students, so basically they just don't care, someone will pay them. I suspect other high demand areas are the same way.
Not all of them are that way, but you have to look around.

I've had a really hard time dealing with letting agents as well. They tell me they're willing to work with me even though I'm in still in the States, but I don't think that's actually the case. I would suggest possibly staying someplace temporarily when you first get there and try to find a place once you're there. It will be a lot different when you're dealing with the agent face to face. Also, if you know someone in the UK who's willing to act as a guarantor for your lease, that will typically please the agents and you won't have to put money up front (other than a regular deposit, of course).

Good luck!

With no credit history in the UK, you might find things to be difficult.
When i first arrived, i did pay the 6 months in advance, because i had no job, no credit history, and at that stage, no leave to remain in the country! ... the landlord was happy, and i was happy, because i knew that no matter what else went wrong, at least i had a roof over my head for 6 months! (However, my rent was A LOT cheaper than what you are looking at!)

We rented through a private individual - no extra deposits necessary.

Another private renter here. I decided not to waste my time/money on agents. My first private rental was not successful, but my second one is.

Yes if you can go with a private landlord do! They are much more flexible.  However it may depend where you are. When we moved to Kent from London last year we were shocked to find that 99.9% of rentals here are through agents.  The first house we moved into the agent demanded 3 months rent up front due to my husband being on an FLR, nothing to do with his credit rating which they had already determined was fine. Nor did they care that I am a british citizen. We moved out of that place after 6 months and for our current house we had to provide the letting agent with a guarantor, which was better from our point of view but my parents weren't too happy about signing the guarantor form which they felt was basically like signing away their life savings.

We must be one of the few people who had a decent experience with a letting agent.  We found a place and moved in about 5 days later, put down 6 weeks deposit and paid the first month in advance.  That was it.  And there was a small fee for checking my references.  We are both US citizens and are here on work permit.  They asked for references and my employer had to confirm my salary but that was it I think.

Katadina, where in the UK do you plan on moving to? I think that might determine how prevalent letting agents are. As Britwife has said, it might be difficult to rent privately somewhere like Kent. My cousin in Oxford ran into the same problem -- both she and her bf are UK citizens, but my aunt and uncle still had to sign on as guarantors which didn't thrill them. On the other hand, if you're moving to a more rural location, it will be very easy to rent privately. Where I live, for instance, there are virtually no rentals through agents.

I've done both private and agents. Private, if you get a good landlord, is almost always the best. The agents, bottom line, are in it for their cut of the profit. For our current private let, we just needed letters of reference and the first month's rent and deposit.

I didn't have credit when we moved in together, so I got a guarantor. We used a friend of my husband's just for convenience, but the agent was happy to use my brother in the US as well....

Anyone have any ideas how to find private rental properties??

Local newspapers, Loot, Gumtree.

We found the local classifieds paper in Bristol by browsing the University of Bristol's student housing website.  Those can be a good source of rental info and brief descriptions of the areas of your city - although they tend to focus on the lower rent/student areas.  But the lists of agents and agent fees and places to look for classified ads are good.

Try the local newspaper in your area. I agree with others that it's usually cheaper to contact directly a landlord rather than going through an agent. 

The real estate / rent is quite expensive in the UK and London in particular. I rented a room for about a month (I paid 100 per week) in a residence while looking for an apartment/flat. I was lucky enough to know the place, because this is where I stayed when I was a student 10 years ago.