Cost of university accommodation in London.

[Hopefullyromantic]

DS has Imperial in his sites. Can I have a ball-park figure of how much students are paying to live in London? TIA

Don't forget that imperial have a pretty generous grant scheme available to anyone who qualifies for anything more than the minimum grant. This can help offset higher accommodation costs.

@SalGoodwoman , has your DC been able to get a hall place until the end of the summer term?

My DS is going into final year too. The friends he was house-sharing with in year 2 are all having a year abroad and, although he could have joined other house-shares they would have all been 12 month contracts. He ideally wants something that will last until after his finals, no longer. He assumed all the hall places would be for first years, so didn't look at those.

Default plan is to live at home (1 hour away) and sofa-surf with friends for nights out.

@steppinout I'm sorry, I don't know the exact length of the accommodation term. I expect it will be until the end of the academic year. I don't get involved in the applications (we have several kids at different universities, I don't want to manage any of it for them all! With my peri meno memory, I'd be sure to fuck it all up!)

Has your son looked at the intercollegiate halls, if not UCL ones?

DS at UCL was £1000 pcm halls only, no food, last year. This year is sharing with Imperial student and paying £1000 pcm w/o bills

He was in inter-collegiate in year 1.

He's not as organised as your DC's so probably hasn't looked at any of them. 🙂

I know they release places a few weeks into term, for swaps etc, so I'll encourage him to look then.

we have been our children's guarantor for several years now (in London and also at other UK universities). The contacts we have agreed to have explicitly said we are only liable for their (our own child's) share of the rent, not their housemates'.

@SalGoodwoman what you are saying about only being guarantor for your child's share of rent is a sensible approach. "Of course" one might say.

However, this was not the approach taken by the landlord or the agent we dealt with in London last year. They would not budge. It was take-it-or-leave-it and there was no reasoning with them. This is more than one landlord/agent. The bargaining power is with the landlords, not the tenants. I refused to guarantee because we were the deepest pockets amongst the parents as well as regulated professionals and would be the first to be sued by the landlord if there was any default in rental. As lawyers, the meaning of 'jointly and severally' liable under the guarantee was not lost on us. We paid 6 months of our dcs' share of rental in advance to avoid giving a guarantee.

Dd is looking for a flat in London for September this year. Every landlord who is prepared to consider students (not many) has multiple viewings back-to-back on the same day and the flats go in a matter of days. Dd is still looking😓. We have no choice but to suck it up on the guarantee/deposit again.

@blueshoes my DC found his place last year via OpenRent which advertises direct rentals from landlords. His landlord was eccentric (rude, verging on childish in some of his messages, and a corner-cutter/penny-pincher), but it worked out ok. If your DC uses OpenRent, my advice would be to use the "Rent Now" process (https://www.openrent.co.uk/rent-now) which means OpenRent hold the deposit and first month's rent for 2 weeks into the contract. I insisted my DC did that, which annoyed their landlord (because he had asked for a direct transfer, but instead he had to wait, and it cost him £50 🙄). If the landlord had pulled out at that point, my son and friends would have got their money back, but he didn't. It was a good safeguard. There have been headlines about scammers operating on OpenRent and similar websites (e.g. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66846416)

@steppinout Thanks for the link and the tip. We will check it out for dd. Getting desperate now as her lease ends in 2 weeks.

How often do DC stay at home and commute to a London uni if they already live in greater London?

No it isn't, some of the accommodation is cheaper than Bristol, Bath etc

Chapter have quite a few student residences in London:

https://www.chapter-living.com/booking/

@steppinout

Which Uni would he need to be close to, steppinout?

Thanks to all who spotted my typo - I meant to say £200+.

And sorry if I scared the OP!!

Having had a DD in Bristol and London, Bristol is cheaper.Certainly has cheaper halls. Imperial from Acton takes forever. Most students at Bristol are not 30 plus mins from the uni. Cost of rentals in Clifton reflects a short walk to uni. Going 30 mins away will definitely be cheaper.

There’s simply nowhere cheap in London. As min loan parents might not have a lot of spare income, they really do have to dig deep. Lots of rentals will be 52 weeks. Wanting less might be really difficult. It’s not a buyers market. I think London is becoming just for the well off and those who can commute. It changes the experience and of course Imperial has high numbers of overseas students, mostly with money.

Often, now. About 1/3 or more of London university uk students are from London and commuting.

UCL

@steppinout

Chapter Student Living at King's Cross would be accessible for UCL, I think that door to door would be about 15 minutes by bus on most days.

https://www.chapter-living.com/properties/kings-cross/?

Minimum is £300 a week. Ground floor studios.