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Okay, after much talking me and my partner have decided to rent a flat and not buy now like most of you were saying sometime ago in a thread I setup here.
Just wanted to get some pointers of what we should be looking for when we are showed round by the estate agent.
Cheers
Avoid storage heaters like the plague - bad bad bad!
Check the water pressure / temperature - how's the shower?
What's included (furniture etc) - If you have your own, can they take some of the supplied stuff away?
hidden costs, like maintanace if its a block of flats. In terms of structure, obvious things like damp. Neighbours are key in flats, make sure they arnt the noisey type or the opposite and will moan at u everytime u flush the chain
check on the bill situation as well - if you can get water thrown in with your rent then thats always a bonus - also check on the telephone situation. When i moved to my new place the landlord hadnt bothered to get a phone line connected, and the only way to get one was to pay BT £75, and as its a new devlopment no cable has been put in yet
also check on the surrounding area - if you can drive make sure theres somewhere you can park your car, last thing u wanna do is have to park streets away. Also check the local shops and services, you wanna be in good walkin distance of a pub and a local shop. One of my mates who couldnt drive moved to a new place where the nearest shop was 30mins walk away so bare that in mind.
as mentioned above get a good feel for the place, make sure theres no damp etc or damage - if there is damage make sure the estate agent knows about it (just incase they try screw you over). Also get a feel for the neighbours, again u dont wanna live next to someone who's gonna keep u up all night (unless u like that sort of thing) or to someone who's gonna be bangin on ur door everytime you cough.
Ring your insurance company, easyest way to find out what the crime is like in the area.
Check the water colour, ie, do you have to run the tap for 10 minuites before you want to drink it (as someone above said, check the temp).
Open all the windows, stick ur head outside see if theres anything that could be a pain.
When you visit your favourate one a second time, do so at a different time of day.
If its at all drab, or any excuse you can, say how it would need re-painting or the similar, if your lucky landlord will get pro's in to do it, if your not, he'll get paint for you.
Slight bit of racisim, some landlords of other cultures and ethnic origins pride themself in haggeling, so haggle, a mate got over £50 off a month (1/6th)!
If you decide to move in, take shed loads of pictures, fill all your memory cards. Myself and some friends had a proper shizster landlord.
As above, before moving in, take pictures of any damage, marks on carpets etc and make sure it is written down and signed by both you and the landlord / letting agent.
Above all, make sure that you have EVERYTHING in writing, however silly it may seem at the time....
For example, we were told that we could put a cat flap into the back door of the place we rented, and the landlady was 100% fine with it and explained to me that if it was going to be re-let after we moved out she wanted to advertise that pets were allowed and therefore a cat flap would be a bonus, and if they decided to move into the house themselves after we left, they wereplanning on getting a new double glazed back door anyway, so either way, no probs. Didn't even think of getting it in writing at the time as we had had a lengthy discussion about it!
When we left the house 6 months later we had £50 deducted from our deposit because we hadn't put the back door back as it was when we moved in...
...also check how much notice you need to give if you want to leave.
Some say 1 month, but sometimes you find that that only applies if you have been there for over a year... just make sure you read all the small print :)
Watch out for 'Party People' next door. I don't mind the odd late night/early morning, but in one place I had next door has celebrated each Saturday religiously until Sunday ~7am.
See if you can ask a few questions of the current occupants to find what the street/area is like - it may look ok during the day ... but when the sunsets ...
Try to find out how the landlord really deals with issues. A bad landlord can lead to loads of hassle. If possible, talk to current tenants who have had issues.
Favour a flat that is managed by the agency rather than the landlord directly - you will generally get a better response in an emergengy.
You may find these days landlords wanting 2 or even 3 months notice periods. Negotiate that down to 1 month for sure!
Expect to loose your deposit whether you take pictures or not...once I did get about £200 back but the other err, 4 times, no chance.
Check with utilities for outstanding bills on the place. If you are ultra paranoid, ask Experian if there is any bad debt registered to the address.
Top floor flats are quiestest generally, but there will be no garden. Always ask about fire safety etc and what escapes there are (you may have pyro's living below!).
If you can avoid it, stay away from main roads!
And I know you already made your mind up, but if you can raise a deposit, to buy the same place will be about 10-20% a month *cheaper* in mortgage as a general rule.
Basically in the rental market, you are nothing more than a means to pay that buy to let mortgage - this does mean however that you are probably likely to be able to haggle on the price and the terms of the agreement - especially if you are looking somewheree like the outer areas of greater london where there is an excess of rental property at the moment!
Best Of Luck
The place we are looking at including water rates in the monthly charge. Is this a good thing?
water rates will cost u around £20pm if unmetered
Had a look at house prices recently? Sorry, but WRONG. True in 1999, not true now.Quote:
Originally Posted by herbert_goon
I have - in fact we just bought somewhere!
A mortgage of £185000 is about £1k a month - in South London you struggle to find anything <£850 pcm so its true around here, but other areas may differ - e.g. Essex, Herts, Croydon where property is cheaper. Of course you need to be able to get the mortgage in the first place...
I would have though that the masssive increase in buy to let would mean than rent > mortagage in some cases?
No, because there's a massive glut of small houses available to rent, but not to buy, driving sale (and thus mortgage) prices up and rental prices down.Quote:
Originally Posted by herbert_goon
Well, I'm moving to St Albans in the summer and facing the choice of rent at ~£800 pcm or a mortgage of ~£220,000 (after a £20,000 deposit) - roughly £800 pcm interest only at cheapest rates, but with all the additional expenses and risk of owning a property...
The whole buying vrs owning.
I'm quite lucky in that i've family spread out to the north, the most southwest, and been living in reading for 3 years.
If i do end up working in london next year, odds are i'll be renting, as soon as i have a deposit of 15k, I'm planning to be able to go half on a house with a buy to rent mortgage.... Definately not in london thou.
A bit of time, and knowing an estate agent will let you know where the biggest rises are liekly to be, and where the most stable are. Right now for instance you couldn't go wrong buying a house with 3 bedrooms, turning it into 4/5 if your within 10min walking of the uni. Such house would cost about £150-180k, and require about £10k to make everyone want to live there. You would then have no difficulty getting it all paid off within 15 years (people will pay £300 pm for squaller) on the tennents rent allone with tennets paying for all nessicerry improvements. One way onto the ladder, and really not a bad investment.
The reason that works, is knowing the area/people to manage it for you.
if ever i have children, when they go off to uni, i sure as hell want to be able to do that for their student house.