{"id":1093,"date":"2015-08-02T13:20:57","date_gmt":"2015-08-02T13:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/studentblogs\/emma13\/?p=592"},"modified":"2017-02-20T09:21:50","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T09:21:50","slug":"flat-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/2015\/08\/02\/flat-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Flat success!"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Last week I went down to London with my mum and sister to continue searching for flats for next year. My other two housemates are in Japan and Southampton at the moment so the responsibility fell to me!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to find a place around Imperial campus close enough to walk, which is what we really wanted, having lived further out in first year and not enjoyed the experience of getting the bus everyday through London traffic (especially early in the morning or on Friday night). Obviously most of the closest areas to Imperial (South Kensington and Chelsea for example) are far too expensive for us to find anywhere suitable, so we ended up looking around Earls Court, Fulham and West Kensington.<\/p>\n

We looked round some really really awful places which needed burning to the ground rather than someone paying \u00a3650 a week (!) to live there\u2026.<\/p>\n

\"compressed\"<\/a>
Example: this lovely (!) bedroom…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"c2\"<\/a>
Example 2: these beautiful extra mattresses generously thrown in for free<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And also some amazing places that would have been the best if we were all ready to work five jobs and not eat next year…<\/p>\n

\"c3\"<\/a>
Example: isn’t this just the nicest bathroom you’ve ever seen?? <3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eventually, we found a Goldilocks flat, near to West Brompton tube. It is neither a damp hole in the ground nor a mansion that will bankrupt us, so if we can just get the paperwork signed (a tricky thing when everyone is on holiday) we have finally found somewhere to live!<\/p>\n

Useful places to look for houses in London:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Imperial home solutions<\/a> website. This is a bit hit and miss however\u2014some of the worst places we saw were from here! (But also the one we eventually got.)<\/p>\n

Estate agents in the area\u2014we have used Broadway and West and Foxtons as well as loads of others. They charge agency fees as well as fees for paperwork which can sometimes be a lot. On the other hand they can be very helpful, especially the first time you rent a house as you have someone to ask questions to and who will drive you around from viewing to viewing!<\/p>\n

We also used websties like Zoopla<\/a>\u00a0and Rightmove<\/a>\u00a0as well as Evening Standard Rentals, Gumtree, Prime Location etc. etc.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I hope everyone else is enjoying their holidays (and not worrying too much if you are still waiting for your A-Level results!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In which I finally have a flat for next year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1040,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[126852,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-third-year-0","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1040"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1093"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1930,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093\/revisions\/1930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}