Where to look for house to rent?

[ScruffyTwiglet]

We're moving to Edinburgh from England and going to rent while our house sells. To get a house that's in catchment of Blackhall or Davidson's mains primary is proving tricky. The sodding cat is not helping as a good few won't take her.

I've been looking and looking, it seems that all houses appear on either Rightmove or Citylets. There's nothing on gumtree.

There's nothing local I've missed? Alternatively no one has a 3-5 bed house they'd like to rent out?

espc.com/

ESPC has a rental option, you might find some properties there that aren't listed elsewhere, we did.

When we moved our stuff was in storage and we needed less then 6 months so we got a short term fully furnished, cannot for the life of me remember the name of the agency, but we looked at quite a few on-line.

I'm not familiar with those areas - could you compromise on bedrooms and/or consider flat instead of house?

We also have a cat. The rental agency told us it's rare for landlords to permit pets, unless the property is of a really poor standard anyway, and they said it was often the one bed flats. In fact we rented a flat where cats were not permitted and told the agency the cat was staying with my parents. In fact we moved the cat in with us after a few days. When we moved out I cleaned like I never cleaned in my life and it seems the landlord never guessed. There were a couple of hairy moments when they wanted in to show the flat to someone else but we got away with it. Judge away, the cat was the hardest part of the whole re-location and if the Cats' Protection League would have taken her she'd still be in Kent.

Are you looking for unfurnished or furnished? We rented an unfurnished place and they weren't fussed with us having cats, but a lot of places have a blanket 'no pets' policy which is hard.

Try also Zoopla and s1 homes to look for rental properties. some other companies like Belvoir and Rettie don't advertise outwith their own websites, so worth a look every now and again too.

Good luck, finding a rental house was a bit of a nightmare for us. There are lots moer furnished places, but that poses problems with animals. (Nice) unfurnished houses are like gold dust.

Thanks. I did look at ESPC and found nothing, but that was just once so I'll revisit.

So far we've found about 1 in three are ok with cat, so it's not a total deal breaker.

The 3 bed is already a compromise, we really would want bigger as we have three children and both work from home. I think we'd kill each other in a flat. I'd just be so, so conscious of the noise the dreadful children are making that I'd be on eggshells all the time.

It's something to consider though. Maybe we are just being too picky.

Nice to know it's not just us having these decisions to make. Thank you so much for replying.

www.s1rental.com/Houses-for-rent/Edinburgh/Blackhall-(Edinburgh)/

This site has a couple in Blackhall, didn't check whether it's in catchment and can't see whether they take pets, but hopefully this site widens your options. Could you offer to increase the deposit and/or have the property professionally deep cleaned after you move out to secure a rental that wouldn't otherwise accept a cat? There's no harm in asking.

We did seriously consider re-homing our cat before we moved, partly because we didn't know where we'd end up but in our case she is very old we thought the move might finish her off and she'd be happier to stay put. In fact she goes from strength to strength. Since we moved to Morningside she refuses to eat anything but Waitrose organic cat food.

Good luck!

Sorry, missed your post there starfish . We'd probably prefer unfurnished. I haven't heard of Belvoir or Rettie. Thanks!

kinglooie it sounds like your cat is fitting right in! Brilliant!

I think S1 has the same stuff. I've looked at those two, thanks. Both in right catchment but one is also for sale and so two month notice period after three months, other is a six month maximum.

The place that won't allow cats is horrible anyway but I did offer more deposit etc.

Thanks! It's all doubly depressing as we thought we'd found somewhere but I think we're in the process of being 'gazumped' in that the price has gone up online and there's another viewing on it this afternoon.

Grrr.

That happened to us too. The rental market can be brutal - letting agencies can be right bastards too, not returning calls, not doing what they promised etc.

You can set up alerts on the likes of zoopla.com for when properties that meet your requirements come on the market. I find zoopla the best and the quickest to be honest.

With unfurnished, I think you could probably persuade them to take a cat, as it's you're furniture. We were lucky that the (only) house available at the time was okay with pets and had a cat flap already installed.

Well after all that, the original house has just come off. As in the agent has gone for us rather than the other viewers, at the original price. Yey!!!

Just in the hope of lightening your mood - the cat came up in a large crate that took up most of the boot of my car, leaving not much room for many of my possessions. She is not a great traveller and usually makes that sinister meowing that sounds more like a baby crying than a cat. So it was me, her and my then 6 year old DS and it took about 10 hours from Kent to Edinburgh. That is a particularly bad run, long stretches of 50mph limit and more stops for than I would do if it was just me. Thankfully, it turned out that, much like in the movie "Speed", the cat was fine so long as I stayed around or above 50 mph, whenever I slowed down the sinister, pitiful cat crying started up. How we laughed. It was such a long day I completely forgot that I had still to go on-line and pay for the Dartford Crossing. I got a fine a week or two later.

Worth it though!

Yay ScruffyTwiglet - great news!!

KingLooieCatz - your poor puss, glad she made it though. Thats some journey!

Your cat is a bit of a star kinglooie !

There is Lettingweb too - though right move /s1 homes may duplicate their stuff. i feel your pain- was in the same situation 5 years ago. keep looking every day.

Thanks kelso but I'd mentioned that the original house has worked out in the end.