Real Estate Agents

Real Estate agent on Park Lane

We had an interesting experience with real estate agents whilst trying to find a place to live.  It's really quite different over here from in Sydney.  For those who may not have rented in Sydney, our experience has been you have to move fast.  You'll turn up at the Saturday morning viewing, along with 20 other people, you have to fill in the application form straight away and bring along your documentation as well as the holding deposit.  If you don;t do that you'll miss out.  It always seemed really competitive and as if the agents always viewed renters as these annoying creatures they have to deal with before they can move onto the big bucks in selling properties.

Here in London it's been a totally different experience.  It seems as if the market is still really competitive, at least that's what the agents say, but then we applied for 2 places and got both, so I'm dubious as to how tight it really is.  But the main, massive difference, between Sydney and London, is that you'll turn up wanting to see a place, and the real estate agent will actually drive you out to see the place.  I have to say, I could get used to that sort of luxury :)

Our very own hat stand

We were dealing with 2 agents and when we first got in touch with them, we kind of picked a rental number out of the air, we didn't really know what rents were worth in London.  The first agent said, no sorry we don't have anything for that price, whilst the second said, yep no worries we'll find you something.

We then proceeded to spend about 3 days with this second agent as they showed us dive after dive.  There was always something wrong with it, right next door to a main highway, up a pokey staircase with no hope of fitting furniture up there, full of mold, too expensive.  We were starting to despair.  We had even raised the rent we were willing to pay in the hopes of finding something, but still we get shown places with bathrooms we wouldn't fit in, beds we couldn't sleep in.  I was starting to get worried.

Our living room / dining room and through to our cozy kitchen

At which point I contacted the first agent again to let them know we had raised the amount of rent we were willing to pay and whether they had anything.  The next day we saw three places with them, all of which were nicer than anything we had seen previously, all for less rent.  We ended up taking the third place we saw.

Our kitchen, massive freezer but lacking somewhat in bench space

It's not to say the first agency wasn't nice, everyone we dealt with were really friendly and helpful.  It's just I think they like to get people moved in quickly without any real concern with what they are actually looking for.

Our bedroom, it even has a chandelier

Another difference with the rental market is that it seems most places come furnished, and it has no bearing on the rent.  In fact if you want a place unfurnished, often it will be more expensive as the landlord has to pay to store furniture somewhere.  I'm not sure why this is.  Do people rent here for shorter periods of time before buying?  Are most people renting in London essentially transients, in that they stay a few years before moving on?  I can't work out why you would want to constantly be sleeping in other people's beds and using their cookware otherwise.

The cafes in Hampstead

The place we eventually found has a lot of charm (ie it's quite small), but it's in Hampstead, which is a fantastic location.  I like to think of it as the Montemarte of London, in that it is on top of a hill and there are a lot of cobblestone laneways around.  There are more rich people though and less people trying to sell string bracelets.  There seem to be some good pubs around which we will have to work our way through, and only 10 minutes walk from Hampstead Heath. 

Hampstead Heath is quite different from the other green spaces of London, much wilder, with little dirt tracks disappearing off into wooded groves and dogs everywhere.  In fact it's more a case of the dogs can run everywhere and there is only a tiny fenced off area where dogs aren't allowed and that is where the toddlers can roam free.

Oh and about the lack of posts recently, we still haven't got internet (or a phone) at our new place.  This has limited our blogging somewhat.  I'm attempting to post this over the 3G network, so we'll see how we get on.  Thank goodness for free, unlimited mobile phone internet.