Renting in London

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I'm looking to move to London, considering i'll be working near Holbon station, and earning £20,000-22,000 where can I live?

I hardly know london and I don't want to end up in a getto. I don't know how long it takes to travel on the tubes or bus's or what's a resonable commuting distance.

Can anyone recommend me an "OK" perhaps lively area for £85 per week? Perhaps double that if I find someone to share a two bedroom place with me.

Is it even possible on that kind of money?

Thanks Chris
 
if you work on what is normal practice of a minimum 6% rental return on property the a £200,000 property will attract a rent of about £1000 per month

so if you look at for sale prices in an area you want ( www rightmove.co.uk ) and take monthly rent as 0.5% os the price you won't be far wrong

I amm assuming that 6% is the standard minimum in London ( it is up here )
 
Probably want to be on the central line. I've lived in both Leyton in the East and Acton in the West.

Both are nasty, but ok if you know what I mean. You'll need to spend more than that though.

When I first came to London on £22k I was living in North Greenwich in an ex-council block that had hookers living at the other end of the floor and a crack dealer who would hang around outside about once a month. It cost me about £105 a week (the flat, not the hookers or crack before we get any gags) plus bills. It was a bargain, but it was a tip.

Saying that it had good transport links and the Cutty Sark is still my favourite pub in the world.
 
The more rooms a property has, the better value it generally works out on a "per room" basis.

Therefore I'd look for at least 2 or 3 others to share with if you can, and you might then be able to find something half reasonable.

5 of us shared a 4 bed house in Stoke Newington (2 were a couple and shared a room) and we paid £500pm between us. The area wasn't fantastic, but wasn;t bad - the worst point being that there isn't a convenient tube station so you have to rely on buses (which weren't actually that bad, routes to waterloo, london bridge etc, calling at places like st. pauls and Bishopsgate).

I'm moving to work in London in 2 months and haven't found a property yet, but rather than live in London I plan on living about a 30 min trail ride away and commuting in.

Unfortunately at in the region of £250 to £300 a month on rail fairs this isn't exactly a cheap alternative.
 
Indeed, I'm sure the area will probably continue to improve as well, what with the East of London (or whatever it's called) tube line extension.

The house we lived in looked like the rest of the terraced houses in the street from the outside, but was stunning inside. Heated tiled kitchen floor with brand new stainless steel fronted oven and hob and extractor, nice 50:50 paved/grass back garden, freshly painted bedrooms, laminate flooring throughout the downstairs, brand new bathroom with mosaic blue tiles, decent shower, new boiler, washer and tumble driver, very clean etc - I think we did rather well.
 
That is terrible. 22K a year and the guy won't even be able to afford a place of his own :confused: What the hell is the point in working if he can't even afford a house for himself?
If I stayed anywhere, earned 22K I'd at least expect to be able to afford a nice 1 bedroom flat for myself. How do people get anywhere in this world if this is the price you need to pay in order to live somewhere? How do people afford 3 bedroom, 2 floored houses if this is the price expected to be paid for just a flat? It's shocking.

I'd need to earn like 50K in order to pay for a place of my own?

I'm quite interested in this, as in less than 2 years I might need to get a place of my own, but it sounds like I'll never get anywhere in life when it comes to houses, and I'm not sharing no house!!!!!

/rant.
 
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shifty_uk said:
How do people afford 3 bedroom, 2 floored houses if this is the price expected to be paid for just a flat? It's shocking.
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With great difficulty. I'll be earning the better side of 30k and am still finding it a struggle to spot many decent places to let within budget (I'm looking for a 2 bed places and someone else <admittedly not on as much cash> will be paying half>).

edit: It should be worth pointing out that you wouldnt have this kind of problem if you're not looking to live within commuting range of london.
 
shifty_uk said:
I'm quite interested in this, as in less than 2 years I might need to get a place of my own, but it sounds like I'll never get anywhere in life when it comes to houses, and I'm not sharing no house!!!!!
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Simple solution, dont live in London?

I pay £46 a week for rent, sharing a house with 3 others. And even thats very high, as I'm within 2 miles of the centre of Durham so students push the prices up. If you go another mile out you pay £10 a week less.

(Off topic I realise, I was just trying to point out that you *can* live on that much, you cant do it anywhere.)
 
True, but the sort of job that pays 22k in London might only pay 15k in Durham so it's worth working out where you'd be better off, in some places it's not as clearcut as you'd think.
 
ballistic said:
£85 per week Bwahahahahahahahaha

no, unless you're sharing with a few people and in a crap area
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Corrected :D

Unfortunately it's going to be a lot more than that. Think closer to £110+ per week if you're sharing, lots more if you're by yourself :(

It's a toss up between living a bit further out and paying more for travel or living closer in and paying marginally less for travel. Best to come down and have a lok around one weekend, but be prepared for a shock, a lot of London is rough compared with everywhere else.
 
calnen said:
Simple solution, dont live in London?

I pay £46 a week for rent, sharing a house with 3 others. And even thats very high, as I'm within 2 miles of the centre of Durham so students push the prices up. If you go another mile out you pay £10 a week less.

(Off topic I realise, I was just trying to point out that you *can* live on that much, you cant do it anywhere.)
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I'm in Glasgow, so won't ever be going to London.

You pay 46 quid but your sharing a house....why would anyone want to share a house, a house is suppost to be yours alone?
 
calnen said:
Simple solution, dont live in London?

I pay £46 a week for rent, sharing a house with 3 others. And even thats very high, as I'm within 2 miles of the centre of Durham so students push the prices up. If you go another mile out you pay £10 a week less.

(Off topic I realise, I was just trying to point out that you *can* live on that much, you cant do it anywhere.)
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That's the problem though it's not just London that has this problem. You'll find the same problem in most cities and countries that you live in but in the end you have to start somewhere. My flat in Moscow last year cost a lot (£500 / week) for a one-bedroom flat which was 'central'. Where I'm living in Kiev is cheaper than that but not by much, it's still comparitive to London. Then again my flat in London costs me £300 / month for Pimlico :)
 
£520 a month inclusive will get you a decent-ish 2/3 bedroom place in and around Camden Town, won't be massive or in amazing nick but it'll be a decent place and away from the high street Camden's actually quite nice and quiet plus feels like one of the safest places in London (just imo of course!). Easy to get into central London too. You can also go a bit further out to Holloway/Finsbury Park where there are also lovely house-shares available in nice leafy areas a few minutes walk from the main tube stations.

Alternatively look down in Clapham at house-shares, lots of decent sized, well looked after house-shares where you'd have more room in a 4-bed place than you would in most 2-bed places. Sites like www.rollonfriday.com, www.moveflat.com and www.thegumtree.com are good places to start. Likewise easy to get into central London

Seriously though, if you're on a budget I'd look at flat-sharing with more people, for at least a few months to see whether it's for you, you can save a lot of money, plus it has the added bonus that if you're lucky you have a social network in place that you can just slot into.

Bear in mind as well that if you're working in Zone 1 you don't have to get the Tube to your exact station stop, a lot of the stations are within easy walking distance to each other so you have a lot more flexibility than you may initially think.
 
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