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Renting Accommodation in the UK
Renting accommodation can be a difficult and
frustrating experience. Generally, most international students will
be offered accommodation on campus. However, for those who decide
to rent we asked LOOT for some tips on forward planning and advice
on how to make the task of finding somewhere to live a lot easier.
 The
newspaper: LOOT has been in the classified business for 15 years
and has learnt the best method of finding accommodation and what
to look out for. In London and many other major cities LOOT is the
most popular choice for finding rented accommodation.
LOOT
is on-line at loot.com so you can look at what is available before
you get here. Loot.com has between 12 and 14,000 properties available
and updates every 24 hours, vital to get ahead in rental market.
One of the first things you need to check is your visa. You may
think that the educational establishment that is sending you over
will do all the required paper work, but check as this may not be
the case.
There are other
documents that it would be a good idea to sort out. You will need
references to rent accommodation, including a bank reference, character
references, a letter from your college or university confirming
that you will be studying with them and for how long, and if possible
a reference from a previous landlord and a previous employer.
Before you start
looking for houses or rooms it’s a good idea to identify which
areas you need to be looking in. The college or university that
you are going to study in should be able to give you a list of areas
that are close to where you are going to study. They may even have
lists of landlords that deal especially with foreign students. This
is often the best way to get accommodation, as overseas students
very often get the nicest houses.
Other options
are that you could phone a few letting agencies or look through
a website such as loot.com to give yourself some idea of the types
of accommodation and the prices in those areas.
Please don’t
be shocked at the rent being charged, especially if you are looking
in London.
Barbara Lamb
a US student coming over to study in London said: “ I was horrified
at the prices. When I went to look at some of the places available
they were charging between £300 -£400 and they were
complete dumps. You have to be really determined and just keep looking.”
The rental market
is extremely fast moving in some areas. It is therefore important
to act quickly when answering an ad in LOOT. Rental accommodation
may go in a matter of hours, so you need to be prepared and act
quickly. It is however not much good looking too far in advance
as most landlords and agents will want someone within a month.
Another US student
Mike Upchurch when asked what advice he would give students coming
to the UK, said: “ You need to get a mobile phone or have lots
of change. Get the paper as early as possible and get a good map
of the city and a pair of comfortable shoes. Just keep at it until
you find somewhere”.
If this sounds
like too much hard work, there are ways of reducing the amount of
shoe leather you use up. This involves using an agent to find a
place to live. They will charge between £80 and £120
for this service. There are two types of property agencies that
you can use: letting and accommodation.
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