Student Lettings
Student Lettings – What a student should look for, from a student’s perspective
The first thing you must establish before looking for a place to live for second and third year, is finding a solid group of friends that you will enjoy living with. You do not have to be best friends but at least get on well enough so you can commit to living together for the next couple of years.
When looking for housing, you need to start early as possible! This is because there are a larger range of properties available earlier in the year than there is later on.
To put this into perspective, when I started University in September, I was already looking for houses in the previous November. Dependent on the size of your group will denote which type of property you will require. For example, my group were six in total so this meant we needed to look for 6 bedroom houses as fast as possible.
The reason for looking for larger bedroom houses quicker is because there is higher demand for these properties, They usually result in a lower rent fee rather than a minimal two people living together and having to share large rental and bills. Also, if you want to find a large 6 bedroom property with as much space as possible you have to give yourself maximum search time.
Once you’ve established your group and have started looking, the first advantageous thing you should do is book as many viewings as you can, ensuring you have chosen to view houses you think you and your group would like. Our group attended around 10 house viewings before we found ‘the one’!
By doing house viewings you get a feel of what you want for your place of habitatation. So the first think you will look at is if there is enough space for everyone to live comfortably, with almost equally sized bedrooms. When dealing with properties where some bedrooms are significantly larger than others use a random generator to decide who gets the bedroom, as this prevent arguments between your group, furthermore larger bedrooms tend to pay more into the rent than others who have significantly smaller bedrooms.
So other than size what is there to look for? Here is my list:
- The distance of the house from your university – how many buses would you have to take? Can you walk?
- The general environment of where your house is located – a lot of areas have prominent student housing where second and third years rent, and occasionally this can tend to have excess rubbish in and around the streets
- The size of the garden – if you like a garden to go outside and relax in you need to look carefully for that because it is quite rare, a lot of student lettings have little gardens which are only a few square feet or possibly only a back yard
- Whether you are provided with a washer and dryer in the house
- How many bathrooms are available? – knowing this will help you establish who shares with who
- Cupboard space, especially in the kitchen !
- What type of kitchen you like – do you prefer electric hobs or gas stoves
- When talking to the estate agent ask a lot of questions about the property
- Find out how much the rent and deposit will be
- Look at houses within your budget but explore those out of budget as well - If you like a house enough you may possibly find you can stretch your budget
- When renting, find out whether you are paying monthly or quarterly – I find paying quarterly is easier to manage for students as you get your maintenance loan paid in around the same time you would have to pay your rent (every three months)
Overall, work as a team with your group, you may have to learn to compromise as not everyone will always agree, be considerate of who can and cannot afford the rent as people in your group may have very different financial situations.
Most importantly, have fun picking your home!!