Advice for student getting off campus housing

I'll be starting an MA program at Goldsmiths come fall, and I just found out that the very nice dorm I was all set to live in is no longer an option. Now the only postgraduate options are the most run down (and apparently vermin infested) dorm or the dorm that's over a half hour away from the campus and all transport links.

Any advice in finding flatmates, finding a flat, and most importantly convincing a landlord to rent to someone international?

Sorry to hear about your troubles!

There are a few options for you though.
1. You can e-mail your department administrator to see if he/she might send an e-mail out to the people in your course or other grad students saying that you're looking for a flatmate. Odds are, there's another person that's in a similar situation to you!

2. You can look on this website http://www.spareroom.co.uk/ in your location.

3. You can also look on Gumtree, which is like the UK Craigslist. You're more likely to get scams and such with this one though, so be careful!

4. You can take the riskier option of booking yourself into a hostel for the first couple of weeks so that you can have the benefit of actually being there, seeing the places, talking to landlords, meeting potential flatmates, etc.

5. Your uni might also have some sort of resource for this sort of thing, so maybe get in touch with the International Student Office or Student Services and see what they say?

As for the landlord bit, it's hit or miss. They may ask you to pay a few months of rent up front, they may ask for a guarantor. It really depends. The one benefit is that if you're in a student area, they're going to be used to taking on tenants who have little to no credit (18-20 year old students for instance).

Hope some of this helps! 

Hi kellbell, I studied as a postgrad at Goldsmiths - which dorm are you referring to as being 30 minutes away? The furthest I know of are up near Greenwich, but those are 15 minutes away on the bus (and are really nice).

Really, if you're coming to the UK for the first time for this, university-managed accommodation is invaluable, even if the location isn't perfect. It's much less hassle for you, and you'll have devoted university service employees handling any requests, rather than a private landlord who may or may not be interested in helping. Situations vary, of course, but it's almost always much less a minefield for overseas students to go with uni-managed for at least the minimum possible time, until you figure out what you need.

Raymont Hall is the dorm I was referring to. The Goldsmiths website and google maps confirm that it's about 25-30 minutes by foot. All the rest of the halls were about 5 minutes, which is why this was so disappointing. I did discover that Brockley station is quite close, so it's not as cut off from the rest of the city as I thought.

This won't be my first time in the UK, I spent 6 months at Queen Mary University of London during undergrad. Also, my programme is only a year long, so if I go with student housing it will last the duration of my programme.

Ah cool, I knew someone who lived in Raymont Hall. I visited once, it's actually very nice (for a student hall). You're right, it's near Brockley station, which is just one stop away from New Cross Gate. Even with that aside, if you use the back entrance to Goldsmiths on Barriedale you can walk it in 15 minutes.

That said, if you've lived in London before, private accommodation isn't a bad idea. You do get a lot more independence, less noise, and can choose your housemates. It is more hassle than uni accommodation though, if you just want to focus on study.

Either way, enjoy! I loved my time at Goldsmiths, it has a fantastic culture.