London Rents

nystacey - are you definitely set on moving to London, or are you willing to consider other places in the UK? It can be much cheaper to live elsewhere in the country.

I live about 120 miles west of London in a really nice area of Bristol and I currently share a huge 3-bedroom flat with 2 other girls for a very good price. The flat is on the first floor of a large Victorian house and we have 3 bedrooms, each on different levels - one on the main floor of the flat (a huge, converted dining room), one up about 6 stairs (my room) and one in the loft (with its own en-suite shower and bathroom). The main bathroom has a walk-in shower, toilet, bidet, huge sink and bath with jacuzzi jets and we also have a large living room and large kitchen. Yet I'm only paying £80 a week to live there! I love the flat so much that I'm hoping to get a graduate job nearby so I can commute... unfortunately though, it seems that most jobs in my field are based in the south east of England or in Scotland .

Good luck on the flat hunting - £200-£250 a week won't get you much in London

Depending on the area, it is sufficient for a one bed.

well what a weird coincidence...
I just wrote a long message, thank you Sara, and thanking MaryKate very much for the help, details and tips...  and some strange wind deleted my message 
Hope its not a crime to thank you guys...  You wrote long detailed information on these places and let me know about rightmove, and about your situation and other bits of help.
If any of you had this thread on notify perhaps you can receive my thanks on your email...

I had also responded to TykeMan, and ksand24, so please dont think I was rude if it seems I did not answer to you...
I had commented on how i would love to live in places like Bristol, but London is chosen for a similar reason as yours,  jobs in the field more likely to be there, etc...

On rightmove.co,uk ...  whoa!  is that just too many listings?
I have to spend some time there to figure things out.
Again, to those who've been so helpful and informative and/or offered even more help, thanks a lot!  I'll be doing some research/homework, and hopefully we can compare notes later!!!  but it better be while this thread is young cuz we loose is we snooze!

Good luck on the flat hunting - £200-£250 a week won't get you much in London,

It will if you are prepared to move to zone 3 or 4.  We have a lovely one bed in Finchley for about £900 pcm, but we saw plenty of two beds for this while we were looking, and plenty of places for less.

Vicky

We lived in a nice 1 bedroom apartment in Finsbury Park (Zone 2).  It was a 30 second walk to the park, walking distance to a ton of good pubs and good restaurants on Stroud Green Road, and it was only £1150/month, so £250/month might be slightly low, but it isn't outside the realm of possibility for Zone 2.

Thank you so much for the info...

Someone really helpful kindly directed me to rightmove.co.uk, which seems a bit better than gumtree, although perhaps more agent and less private oriented...
So the thing is, I (or you) can search there for Zone1 (or 2) for flats up to <£1Kpcm, and there's a lot!   A few more nicer ones if you look between £1k and £1.250k.
In Manhattan now, my place is surely less than 500sqft, so maybe initially a small/medium 1BDR that is btwn 500-750sqft would be excellent.   
Although this site has [limited] photos, it doesnt give me the full picture of the flat and the area.   A lot of these look ok, I just hope its not too good to be true kind of deals...
lastly, if you move to Zone 3/4, are places there 1000sqft or so, or does it vary too much to tell?
(For NYC, I can go 45+mins into Brooklyn and get a nice 1000sqft+ loft with views of the city, but not really the best places to be walking around at night unless you know your ways.  So obviously safety is always number 1)

I'm fairly certain *all* the flats/houses on rightmove are from agencies, actually- don't think private landlords can even advertise there.

As for square footage- most people in the UK have no idea how many square feet their place is.  It's just not a measurement that's used here with houses.  We tend to use descriptors like double/single bedroom, etc...and sometimes ads will give the dimensions of the living room or similar (but that's likely to be in metres!)

A lot of these look ok, I just hope its not too good to be true kind of deals...
lastly, if you move to Zone 3/4, are places there 1000sqft or so, or does it vary too much to tell?

The average 2-floor, 3-bedroom family house in the suburbs is only 850 sq. ft., so you're not likely to get a flat that is much bigger than that - and a flat with decent rent costs may be much smaller. UK Housing, especially in London, is generally much closer together and smaller compared to US housing - remember, in England you've got 50 million people crammed into an area smaller than the state of New York... the population is growing but there is very little space for building houses and so everything is smaller here. I read an article a few months ago that said you can fit as many as six UK houses into the space taken up by one US suburban house and yard!

remember, in England you've got 50 million people crammed into an area smaller than the state of New York...

I had often wondered which state to compare to in terms of size.  Now I know 
thanks K!

I had often wondered which state to compare to in terms of size.  Now I know 
thanks K!

NY isn't the best state to compare exactly, but the OP is in NY so I thought it would be a good comparison . I seem to remember reading that England is approximately the same size as Arkansas, but only 1/3 the size of New Mexico (the two states I've spent the most time in) .

I read an article a few months ago that said you can fit as many as six UK houses into the space taken up by one US suburban house and yard!

Ha, I totally believe that- you can walk from one end of our street to the other in 3-4 minutes, and there are over 100 houses on it!

Hi NYStacey

Would you consider moving further out of London?, you'll see rent levels dropping substantially and still within the commuting times you're searching for. There's quite a few threads about the surrounding areas just outside of the London postcodes and I'd think £2-300 extra in your pocket would be a nice thing ?!

The quick or 'express' train from Slough to Paddington is around 22 minutes - and when I was over at Canary Wharf for a while, door to door would take me 90 mins, which about the maximum for a daily commute, so if you're place of work isn't so far then the commute times are within your mentioned preferences

Rental prices around here are around £500-600/month for a nice 1bed flat and 600-800 /month for a 2bedroom place. The higher end of those figures are in the better areas, and there are some top level places for a little more. The newer just built executive 2 bedroom flats just a few mins to the train station are like £825-875/900 per month

Have a look around some posts here about this and of course on rightmove etc £2-300 quid a month in yer pocket aint to be sniffed at!

Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!

all this good advice...    I send you a couple virtual drinks of your choice

"The newer just built executive 2 bedroom flats just a few mins to the train station are like £825-875/900 per month"  - I would be interested to know more about these...  do I find these on rightmove?  was that in Slough?  (off to rightmove in a sec...)

Your advice/ideas sound good.  I would not mind at all living a bit further out... at first, or something..   I think if I were moving to NYC, I wouldnt mind living further out at first or for a while.  I'd like to live closer at least once, before I move further out permanently...

Over the past many years I live in NYC. I did move further out once, but we were coming to the city to often and found nothing much to do over there, that we moved back 1.5yrs later.
But with had a kickass half of a house!

If I live further out, how much can I expect to pay on train/tube a month then?  No need to answer as I will go check the respective site, but I just wanted to comment that I will have to spend on that as well.. At least at first I will be doing a lot of day traveling to get to know as much and many areas of London, etc...


Thank YOU.
 

Hiya,

Just thought I would throw in my two cents, having lived in a bunch of different places in London in the past few years (i'm originally from NYC and DC, if that gives you a sense of what i like!)

I think you can definitely get something in Zone 2 for 250/week (though probably not in the trendiest hoods). Transport costs are VERY high so definitely factor that in for zone 3 and above. If you're thinking about an area that is served only by trains (not tube) it's worth checking the timetables to see when they run, if they run every day, etc. Some services don't run much after PM rush hour, so you're a bit stranded if you go out, or don't run on sundays.

My favorite area I've lived so far is Whitechapel (zone 1/2 east london). Some people here say it's dodgy, but I personally never felt unsafe living there. Parts of it are very bustling but there are loads of quiet side streets as well. I would consider it because the transport options are good -- you can walk to the Shadwell DLR stop for Canary Wharf -- for other parts of the city, you can walk to several tube lines, and there are good nite buses if you go out late. You can walk to Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Hoxton, Old Street, into the City -- the old historical parts of London. Most important you can walk to the best bagel place in london, that's open 24 hours! (on brick lane)

You will see very expensive places advertised in Shoreditch (very trendy) but Whitechapel is a ten minute walk away. It's getting very gentrified, but you can still find reasonable places, I think.

Otherwise, I second the Greenwich love! So, so pretty. Good for getting to canary wharf but not great if you want to go into central london a lot.
I currently live in Deptford (zone 2 southeast london). You can get a 1BR here for less than 200/week and take the DLR or buses to canary wharf. Also get a train to London Bridge (ie central london) in 5 minutes. Great street market and you can walk to greenwich from here. But, the general area is less lively than other parts of london, especially at night. But just to say that you can get a cheaper flat without having to live too far away.

Anyway, good luck searching!! cheers, j

Good avice from Jen there.
 
nystacey, you seem really excited (which is great!) but a bit all over the place at the moment. Maybe it's worth taking a deep breath and chilling for a  day or so? I know that can be really hard, but sometimes it's worth just taking a step back endlessley looking at gumtree and rightmove can make everything just all swim together, or at least  it does for me!

What I would do if I were you, is take a break! Then sit down and make a list of the top things that you want in a place to live, in vague priority order, so mine go like this :

Less than £230 per week rent
Less than 20 minutes commute to Paddington station.
Less than 30 minutes commute to Victoria/East Croydon/Clapham Junction/London Bridge
Less than 30 minute commute to oxford circus (I go shopping/meet friends a lot!)
Close proximity to some local shops (corner shop, pub, garage, market etc)

Double room
Good storage
Nice flatmates
En-suite
Outside space

So assume you work in canary wharf, work out your maximum budget and then what's important to you.
Do you want street markets and busy weekends, character homes, modern flats, river views etc?

Write your list out, then use tfl journey planner to what areas fit into your ideal commute, then use
www.londontown.com to work out what those areas are like, and if they fit into what your ideal neighbourhood would be like.
You need to get some focus or it becomes quite overwhelming, it's a big city and like NYC, has many options and diverse neighbourhoods
Someone might love one area and hate another, it's all subjective, but if you work out what YOU like, you'll have a better chance at finding an area right for you.

One thing I'd add, is you should have a think about your budget and make sure you're being realistic about what you can afford, I see people do it all the time, they can afford the rent but not the council tax etc, so maybe it's worthing doing the following :


you've been job hunting, so you must know what salary bracket you'll fit into. Take the salary and put it into here :
http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/
This will work out your take home salary.

Then consider :
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresandtickets/seasontickets/4805.aspx
This will be the prices of your travel, so that flat in zone 4 might look great, but might look less attractive when you a add £141 travel card.

Also look at something like this :
http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/data/your-council/data/counciltax/data/bands.cfm
Which is council tax prices for my area.
That may add an additional £100-£200 to your rent per month (you'll get an 25% reduction for living alone)

Then consider your food bills, you can get an idea from here :
http://www.sainsburys.com/groceries/index.jsp?bmUID=1232968027157
do an example monthly food shop and see how much you're spending.

Then remember gas/electricity/mobile phone etc.

But generally, if you spend a few hours doing that, you'll have a much more focussed, realistic idea of what lifestyle you'll have and what you can afford. It wont be fun, probably quite boring, but may be essential research before you consider moving.

Best of luck! x