Moving to London - help me navigate the rental market!

The http://legacy.london.gov.uk/rents/ is a good way of estimating the basic rent in an area - although I would use the "upper quartile" figures for what you should expect to pay, as the data is not bang up to date.

3)http://www.spareroom.co.uk/ select one beds and flats, it isn't just a site for flatshares. Sign up for an account and pay for the 'early bird' notifications. 4) It's tough. I'd say be prepared to spend at least two weeks full-time finding something suitable. If you can get to the city for a couple of days in each of those two weeks you need a stack of places (5 or 6) lined up to visit each day. Only when you are in these places do you get a real idea of what they really are. Try to haggle if you can, in my experience it can be beneficial. Don't worry about the unfashionable areas, most everywhere is connected north of the river and you could save some cash. Get a six-month break clause inserted into your rental contract. Nightmare landlords are skilled at not looking like nightmare landlords until after you have signed the contract! Memail me if you want to.

Your're in luck. Victoria St is dead easy to get to and well served by Victoria train and tube station and buses, as well as Westminster and Waterloo at the other end of the street. A reasonable London commute is under half an hour, which still takes you some distance out potentially. An acceptable one is under 45 minutes. Many people will commute for an hour. http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/user/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?language=en East and North East will be more expensive than South and South East. As a rule in London if you live somewhere that means a 10+ min walk to the tube or train line it will, other things being equal, be cheaper than an equivalent place. Your salary works out at £1,935 per month. 45% is £200 per month. This is just about within range, yes, for your salary but pushing it. However, these costs look high to me given that you're supporting two people. London is expensive. Assuming you rented @ £200 per month, you would still need to pay: Council tax, electricity, gas, water (sometimes this is included in your rent), TV licence, phone, broadband, mobile phone, oyster card, contents insurance. By my reckoning, at the lowest end that's about £4-£5k annually or £400-£450 or so per month. It can be as high as £6.5k annually/£550 per month easily. Food is expensive. If you're doing well, you'll get your supermarket shop down to £50 per week/£220/month, but that is being very parsimonious. You don't want to share, which is fair enough. Should you change your mind it will save you a fair bit. Top tips: - Live on/near a good bus route that takes you to a tube or potentially all the way to Victoria. - Live in an ex-council (local authority) flat to get more bang for the buck. There are some one bedroom ones about. They are ugly as sin on the outside, but well proportioned inside. You can spot them in listings because agents never show photos of the outside. You can tell blocks where lots of the flats are ex, rather than current, council by looking at the front doors of the flats. - If you live in Wandsworth or Westminster boroughs your council tax will be half that of other boroughs. One to think about in your calculations. At any rate, check council tax rates for the property you want to live in. - Estate agents are generally lying, shiny suited idiots. The property aggregators and listings sites you've mentioned are the right ones. Try selecting a couple of areas, going there, and looking at local agents and in the windows of newsagents. - Better still, network. All my cheap rents came via people I knew or personal classified ads. Ask around at your future workplace. - http://www.southernrailway.com/images/network_map_full.jpg is a network map for Victoria Station. Cost wise, your sweet spot is outlying London (Zones 3-6). Unlovely but perfectly acceptable places like Mitcham, West Norwood, Tulse Hill, Sutton. Memail me if I can be of help. Good luck.

In north-east London Walthamstow is an up-and-coming area, to the point where it's almost (not quite there yet) becoming hipsterish. There's a buoyant rental market and lots of interesting properties. It's on the Victoria Line and also has Overground links to central London.

One thing to consider is how you think you will handle the commute - not just the time it takes, but the conditions. Peak hour tubes are sheer hell, and the Victoria line from Finsbury Park on (inbound) is seriously fucking awful. I did an hour and a bit through central London each way for two years (Victoria and Central lines, and a bus) and it did my nut in, frankly. I find it far preferable to pay a bit more in rent and live closer to work to not have to deal with that, for my sanity. That said, I think essexjan's suggestion of Walthamstow is a good one, because you will be getting on the Victoria line before the shitstorm and will be able to get a seat more often than not. Does your partner have any income at all? Are they on ESA? The last couple of places I've rented have been the first places I've looked at, and in each case I was the first person to view the property after it came onto the market. So be prepared to apply when you view - you will probably not need to have all of your documentation with you then and there but you will need access to funds for a holding deposit until you can make a formal application. I've found that landlords are usually willing to negotiate on the price if you offer a long lease, but I would probably wait until you have a better understanding of London before considering that, just in case you end up hating where you're living. It's something to keep in mind for the future anyway.

Correction up thread. 45% of Anon's salary is £200/week, not per month.

Some general advice: in my experience, you can get better deals if you look for a flat close to an outer station, rather than a flat that's a longer walk from an inner station. I know that's not the easiest statement in the world to understand, so let me give you an example. It looks like the closest station to your work is Victoria. A trip to Victoria will take you 15 minutes from the St. John's Wood tube station, or 20 minutes from the Kilburn station. As a result, you'll pay more to rent a flat in St. John's Wood than you will in Kilburn. That makes sense, right? Flats closer to the center ought to cost more. But. You don't live in the tube stop. You live in a flat. And it takes you time to walk from your flat to the tube. So, if a flat is a 10-minute walk from the St. John's Wood Tube, it will take you 25 minutes total to get to Victoria (10 minutes walking + 15 minutes tube). If a flat is a 5-minute walk from Kilburn tube, it will ALSO take you 25 minutes (5 minutes walking + 20 minutes tube). You'll spend more time on the tube, but less time walking, and it all equals out. Yet the Kilburn flat will be available at much a much cheaper price. Obviously there are other factors to consider (safety, poshness, local shops, general quality of the flats, etc) But as a general principle, if you can't afford flats near a given tube stop, try looking a few stops farther out, and just focus on flats that are very short walks to the tube. Often, you will end up with a lower rent for the same commuting time. Alternatively, look at the other extreme-- places that have NO tube access but good bus connections. These, too, are often undervalued. I second MuffinMan's advice to use the TfL journeyplanner. I've found it is generally very good at giving accurate estimates of total travel time between two locations. You may want to adjust the default walking speed, though. It assumes an "Average" speed which I think is the average speed for all pedestrians in London. If you are a young, healthy, brisk walker, you may want to set it to "fast." If your partner's ill-health affects their walking speed, they may want to set it to "slow." Of course, before you actually commit to a place, you should do a test run of your actual commute during the actual time you would be commuting, just to make sure there are no surprises.

(Oh, and just to be clear, I'm not suggesting Kilburn or St. John's Wood as specific places for you to consider -- just using them as random examples of commuting time vs. price.)

Everyone's covered it pretty well. You can find Victoria on the http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/standard-tube-map.pdf, ref D4. Note this map doesn't accurately reflect aboveground London. Victoria's a good hub - Circle, District and Victoria lines all cut through it. Don't discount the buses, either. London isn't cheap and on your budget you're looking at something smallish and I suspect outside Zone 1-2. You might want to reconsider the studio or flatshare as a compromise. South on the Victoria line start looking at Pimlico and Brixton, north Islington. On the Circle / District north Bayswater / Queensway, east maybe Aldgate. London's really a collection of small villages and you won't need to step outside your suburb day-to-day if you do it right. Sites are - http://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-rent/property/uk/%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%8E http://www.rightmove.co.uk/%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%8E Ballpark I believe agents get nervous above 1/3 your income, so yeah around 200pw is your target zone. I work with a different budget so can't really help you there. Likely unless you compromise you'll quickly find you have to shift further out than the suburbs I listed above - Walthamstow sounds about right. Agents are sharks. Substantial upfront fees for everything. Compare agents on this before you sign anything - often two or more will represent the same property. Rents (and sometimes fees) are negotiable. How negotiable depends on how much interest there is in the property. One year lease is standard. Many places come furnished. You might have to pay extra for the six-month break clause. I suggest doing your research online, meeting a few agents and viewing a few places in person before jumping in with both feet. Once you feel like you've got a handle on things, if you find a place you like, be aggressive. Bid well - a good agent will give you an indication where the real market is (as opposed to the asking price), so don't try and be too cute - push for an answer same day, pay your deposit on acceptance and take the place off-market asap. If you don't do this someone else will. You may have an advantage in that you can move in straightaway rather than give notice - if your place is available now, you've got a much better shot. Make sure the agent knows this. Once you move in, there's a stack of things to think about - inventory, water, gas, electricity etc. Too much to go into. Google for more info, but it's better to be on top of this from the get-go. Good luck!