The Ultimate Rental Rat-Race
First experiences on finding a place to live in London, and a few tricks gleaned on the way
London has an absolute meat-grinder of a rental market. I intend not to mince my words here. With a population of roughly 9 million crammed into a relatively small footprint of circa 1600 square kilometres (we are talking about an international megacity), there is little to ponder why it is so competitive.
The challenges are numerous, and most of them seem to have one common goal: to drain your energy reserves and befoul your mood. Many a time did I feel my blood pressure spike whilst searching high-and-low for somewhere to live, shortly after moving to London from Melbourne, Australia, alongside my partner. I also acknowledge that my personal situation made this process significantly easier than it could have been. I didn’t yet have work to juggle, nor did we need to budget overly tightly. Nonetheless, London’s historically-high rental prices created a bigger obstacle than predicted.
One Wednesday morning, I was heading to a booked flat viewing on the route C11 bus as it chugged and vibrated maddeningly at glacial pace in the city’s north-west. After 40 minutes of gridlock and my sanity throughly self-interrogated, my phone buzzed in my pocket. The cheerful estate agent was calling to inform me that an offer had just been accepted on the property to which I was heading, and my viewing was unceremoniously cancelled 5 minutes before I was due to arrive. I’m surprised I didn’t hurl my phone childishly through the window as I stormed off the bus, to take its opposite number home.
Another time I spotted a one bedroom place on RightMove (London’s foremost property rental/buyer website) in the city’s inner west. It looked promising, with a large living room with sash windows and a neat open kitchen. The bedroom was advertised along the lines of “bespoke and liveable”, and perhaps in my naivety I optimistically disregarded the lack of photos showing it online. After about an hour’s travel, foregoing other viewings, I arrived to find the bedroom was only describable as an after-thought. It resembled a mezzanine platform above the study, with only enough space between the ceiling and a mattress to squeeze your horizontal body. If you awoke and made any vertical movement to rise out of bed, you would smack your head on the ceiling. I, for one, certainly do not possess enough surplus brain cells to incorporate roof-head-banging into my morning routine. This flat, complete with its coffin-esque sleeping experience, was priced at £2,200 per calendar month.
Below I have listed a few tips, gained from personal trial-and-error. These are in addition to the standard advices of setting a budget and preparing your paperwork in advance.
1. Act quickly, be assertive
Unlike some rental markets which give you time to ponder, London beseeches you to move quickly when you have found a listing you like. I found out the hard way that sending an email enquiry was often a waste of time. Call the agent immediately and ask to view the property, preferably within 24 hours. If they don’t pick up, call the agency they work for and someone will likely arrange it for you.
Warning: the agency will take down your details without fail, and proceed to send you many property listings via phone calls and emails. Whilst this is generally positive and may alert you to a good listing, many will absolutely not be a close fit to what you’re seeking. If you dare sign up to three agencies, you will hit what is known as “Critical Realty Mass” and you will be buried under an avalanche of notifications, resulting in a suffocating experience. Prepare to be muttering “one bedroom…natural light…European laundry” in your slumber.
2. Draw a search radius on RightMove, switch on alerts
I used the excellent RightMove almost exclusively during my property hunt here in London. First, set up an account. Following that, you must draw a search radius of an area you’re interested to live in. This will give you all listed properties in the area. You can filter the properties with parameters such as min/max price and no. of bedrooms. The key here is to switch on your alerts for new properties, and set it to “Instant”. You can do so in the top right-hand corner of the interface. This means that as soon as a new listing comes online, you’ll receive an email and you can view it and take immediate action, further to point 1.
3. Group viewings together
Initially I would book viewings all over London throughout the day, at geographically disparate locations, and at random times. This resulted in much more travel time and stress than necessary. It sounds simple, but my advice would be to try to schedule consecutive viewings of properties in the same area. This means you are much more efficient with your time. The added benefit is it will help to give you a better sense and feel of a particular area, assuming you aren’t from London.
4. Stay positive, do other things
If you make the flat hunt your sole focus (like I did for about one week) it is an excellent way to become quite miserable. You might be lucky and secure the first place you like. However, for most of us, the reality is that this process will take time.
It is full of moments when you’re lost on an unknown street and you get caught in a downpour, or you travel for an eternity only to realise immediately that a place is horrible and you were catfished by its online photos, or you find yourself mindlessly doom-scrolling through RightMove late at night, with a growing sense of existential dread. If time allows, break up the property search by seeing one of the many wonderful things London has on offer. Take an afternoon to see that art gallery or museum you earmarked, or take a breather in a pub.
5. Befriend an agent
This is the step which, in my case, resulted in a successful offer. Many a member of the general public would rather an interaction with mustard gas, instead of an estate agent (a slightly unfair sentiment), however it may boost your chances.
Take my example. After a few months of fruitless search, I made an effort to be friendlier to the agents with whom I was interacting, and with one of them I struck up a cordial acquaintance. One afternoon he offered to drive me to three listings under his management. The last flat of the afternoon had technically been on the market for one hour, and was yet to be posted online. He showed me the place, I liked it, and I took the bus home to immediately apply. There was no throng of fellow hunters to contend with, and landlords generally value lettings arranged quickly.
Lucky? Absolutely. Would the opportunity have arisen if I was unfriendly? Absolutely not.