This can't be right.... conversion...PCM?

I'm confused! I'm scoping out housing in Manchester., I see a 4 bedroom flat for £12,480 pcm. (http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-18960022.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=rent)

It doesnt look like anything special. I go to convert pounds to dollars and it says $21,999.
OK there is no way that a place in Manchester would cost $21K a month!? What am I doing wrong? Isn't pcm "per calendar month"? This can't be right...can it?

OK maybe that is an apartment building??

Two other questions..

1. Why do people say they want to live in a "leafy" area? Are some places not leafy?? (Sorry I live in California, it's all leafy)

2. Why dont listings ever show square footage? How do you know how big the place is?

that price has to be wrong.  That's the only explanation I can think of....there's no way it actually costs that much. And yes, pcm is per calendar month. (btw- that's definitely a 4-bedroom *house*, not a flat.)

1) As far as leafyness goes- some urban areas are fairly devoid of greenery (the neighbourhood where I lived in Manchester was like that.)

2) People tend to use "double" and "single" bedroom as a rough guide to how big the bedroom is.  And I'd wager that most living rooms in normal UK terraced/semi houses are not that much different from one another in size- you kind of get a sense of what to expect (and if the place did have a bigger than average living room, the ad would probably mention it!)

Are some places not leafy?? (Sorry I live in California, it's all leafy)

LOL... you clearly didnt grow up in the same area of California that I grew up in -- pretty close to the desert, things are not leafy!

My guess is that there is an extra zero at the end....

Vicky

Quarter, I grew up in Mendocino County (the wine country) so I'm used to hills and trees...LOTS of trees! 

A quick Google showed other houses in Hall Road to rent at prices around £1300-1400 pcm, so I guess as has been said, it's a typo.

The weird thing is that the deposit also has a large amount.  around £14K -so odd!

I've used rightmove.co.uk a lot in our looking at houses, and I'm really surprised at how little info there is there.  Usually you do get room size proportions for at least the bedrooms.  Sounds like a lazy estate agent entered that one.  I suppose it may be different for rentals, but this is the kind of post I usually find around this area.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-15499436.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy&mam_disp=true

A 4 bedroom house of that type usually rents for around £1000-£1500. It must be a technical fault or some bad typing by somebody.

The weird thing is that the deposit also has a large amount.  around £14K -so odd!

Again...accidentally put an extra zero at the end.

Vicky

Hi VintageCherries

Looks like it was a typo...

just wanted to respond on a point you've made - very very few places in the UK advertise Sq Ft area - it's just not been traditionally done, as said it's 'single or double bedroom' or 'cosy' or 'spacious' etc ...   which of course can mean allsorts of things in reality!

as we USA - UK orientated here, if the Sq ft sizes were more well publicized you'd fall over with shock at how small some places can be!

I'll never forget going to look at 2 properties in particular, a house and a flat - the flat seemed ok till i got to what was described as a living room - I said "was this place designed by an oompa loompa?" it was 12ftx7 if that..  i was shocked!  ..  in the 'house' - i got to a 'bedroom' ..  even the agent looked apologetic "this is a bedroom? where do put even a single bed? - it's not even 6ft wide?" at the time £230 grand they were asking!

If and when you do see some Sq Ft sizing, especially around here in West London, Berkshire and Surrey etc, you'll usually see it on properties costing £half a million + and even then, figures like 2300,2500, 2700 sq ft ..  anything with more Sq Ft generally, add in a couple hundred thousand pounds in asking price!

So comparing to USA average house sizes, you get much less room for a similar equivalent amount - this translates into 'get used to the fact you'll have to downsize and/or get less space for your money'

We are a small, overcrowded and subsequently overpriced bit of land remember!

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Regarding that flat... I sent them an email via the website and they called and left a message on my voicemail saying the £12480 figure was an error, and that the correct price was £720 per calendar month.

funny--it wasn't just an extra 0.  Someone really flubbed that.

I'm surprised to hear everyone saying they don't show room sizes here, as most of the houses I've looked at do show room sizes.  Maybe it's a regional thing, not a national thing.

funny--it wasn't just an extra 0.  Someone really flubbed that.

This has distracted me greatly. The wrong figure is exactly 17.333 times the right one which makes me think maybe something other than bad typing is at fault, I mean if it was 12 times too much, for example, you'd say they'd typed in the yearly rent, but seventeen and one third? And it affected the deposit, which is back to a more reasonable £830. My guess is maybe the participating estate agents upload data to the site and there was a glitch.

I'm surprised to hear everyone saying they don't show room sizes here, as most of the houses I've looked at do show room sizes.  Maybe it's a regional thing, not a national thing.

The detailed property summary sheets agents prepare often quote specific dimensions for the major rooms, but not the overall square footage as in common for American real estate.  They often omit the sizes for hallways, closets, and similar areas too, so it's difficult to calculate the actual square footage from the details alone.