Accommodation hunting

[Iwanttoseethesea]

Hi DS18 is off to uni this year. We won't know if he's got his place until August.
The place he's going has no halls so it will be a private house share.
Having never done this before I'm very confused - do we go and find a house now ready for September or do we wait until results are in and a place is guaranteed ?
One house he's found wants a months rent and deposit by 30th July - before a place is secured - not sure what that's about !
Any help greatly appreciated

It varies a lot by location. Some places it’s standard to have already sorted accommodation by now, others you can rock up a few days before.

If the university doesn’t have halls, I would expect them to have some reasonably robust advice about house hunting in the local area.

Also worth him having a look to see if there are any FB groups for tudenta at the university, or having a look on The Student Room (though this can be hit and miss), to see if he can get a feel for the general approach.

Thanks - he's going to Brighton. I'm just panicking that we are leaving it too late - hoping for reassurance that I've got some time !

Brighton has halls...

Few places are truly so short of accommodation that you can’t find something v quickly, though you may have to be slightly less picky close to!

Agree Brighton has halls. Alternatively look into private halls which will have a mix of Brighton and Sussex students.

www.brighton.ac.uk/current-students/new-students/accommodation/index.aspx

He's not going to the actual Brighton Uni but is studying for a degree in Brighton

If his college cannot give advice he could try to look for accomodation threads for both Brighton and Sussex Unis in places like Facebook and the Student Room. There should be lots of ads for spare rooms as house shares were probably sorted in December and people have since fallen-out/dropped out. You could research now with a certain confidence that come August more will come up.

Or read through both Universities accomodation pages, to see if they mention private halls, run by people like Unite, which are not exclusive to a specific University. You should be able to reserve a place as all first years will be dependent on conditional offers. In some cases these will be a little more expensive/luxurious and attract mainly International or PG students, but not always.

This might be useful