SO pretty!!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOur first house we viewed was a bit of a disappointment. After seeing it though we saw a \u201cTo Let\u201d sign on the same road. We called the number and was told that the house was only 2 bedrooms\u2026a bit far off what we needed. However, there was a house we could view that afternoon with 5 bedrooms. Fantastic.<\/p>\n
We went over to the second house and saw the house. OMG it was AMAAAAAZING. \u00a0It was perfectly furnished and had everything on our list. It was our dream house in a dream location. It was on the market for \u00a3800 a week, but this was massively over our budget. We asked the agent if we could negotiate the price to which she said yes. We put down a holding deposit for the agreed negotiated price and waited to hear back with further details\u2026but the further details never came. A group of 5 girls had put down an offer for \u00a3800 a week\u2026and we lost the house.<\/p>\n
It was a sad day and from then on we agreed to put down the asked price- we should have done this before but we just were so naive about the system. We assumed because we had put our deposit down first that we would be able to have first dibs. Apparently that was not how this\u00a0letting agency worked.<\/p>\n
The next house we fell in love with turned out to have a super dodgy landlord and none of us where happy with what was occurring in the letting agency office.<\/p>\n
We left looking for houses until after exams\u2026<\/p>\n
We saw houses that were HORRIFIC. Not just ugly student houses, but houses with infestations and roof problems. Our hope was lost. We finally found a house in our budget that we all loved, but we had to compromise:<\/p>\n
Our house now has:<\/p>\n
-4 Double Beds, 1 Single<\/em><\/p>\n-No living space<\/em><\/p>\n-Small Kitchen<\/em><\/p>\n-1 Shower, 2 Toilets<\/em><\/p>\nIt was the first house we had seen in weeks that wasn\u2019t disgusting, and that we all liked. We had been walking up and down the roads of Hammersmith for hours\u00a0on end hoping we would find a suitable house…that’s how desperate we were. So we put down a holding deposit.<\/p>\n
No one tells you how much paperwork is involved in house contracts. Initial contracts, deposits, full background checks, guarantors, contracts, admin fees\u2026<\/p>\n
AND THEN\u2026electricity, gas, council tax stuff through the uni, water, WiFi\u2026<\/p>\n
I am exhausted with this house and we haven\u2019t even moved in yet!!! It has been a long journey but I am actually so excited (despite my grumbles) to move in. I will be living with 4 amazing girls\/chefs, and I can\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n
Good luck future house renting students, I hope you play the rental game better than us. Next year we will know the drill and be a lot wiser. Or, I think I will just camp in the library and save this hassle. At least I can leave the library when I want, and not have to beg for an \u201cescape clause\u201d in a contract. (I still am unsure what this even entails\u2026)<\/p>\n
#Freshers2014 #Whohasthekeys?!?<\/p>\n
Mala xx<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
…byebye student loan, byebye savings, hello new house!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1037,"featured_media":286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96935,1],"tags":[97633],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accomodation","category-uncategorized","tag-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","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\/1037"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1881,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions\/1881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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