Last year I undertook a heart breaking, soul shaking search for somewhere to rent because my flat became too expensive. Highs included being driven to work by an estate agent in his convertible after an early morning viewing. Lows included me crying while looking on at a 50-deep queue for a viewing in Hackney where the estate agent-turned-doorman operated a one-in-one-out policy.
I'm still suffering with post-traumatic stress from this house hunt. So, you can understand how I felt last week when I read on the Metro’s front page that private tenants in London now typically shell out £704 a month on rent – that’s 43% of the average young person's income – before you’ve even left the house. And according to the letting company Homelet the average rent for new tenancies in London has hit £1,500 (that’s more than double the national average of £738).
When I began my search back in October I was determined to find somewhere for under £600 a month (before bills) in zone 2. During two months of searching, yes, two months I was homeless and staying with a boyfriend who didn’t really want me there (read: I wouldn’t let him blast techno at 1am on a Tuesday). It’s OK because I won the London renting race… in the end. Sure, my new place is a bit further out than I’d imagined and my bed fills my whole room but it is zone 2 (just), I have a living room and my landlord isn’t a dick. My flat is a unicorn in the mule-shed that is London's rental market. However, I do live in a state of quiet housing anxiety. I dread that again, my landlord will decide to put the rent up and again, I’ll have to move.
With this in mind, The Debrief asked me to go back out on the hunt to see what you can actually rent in London for half of your take-home monthly wage or less.
We know that the average salary for a Debrief reader is £25,000 - that works out to be around £1662.89 a month after tax and student-loan repayments. Working on the assumption that you won't want to actually blow half of your earnings on rent if you can avoid it (and taking into account the fact that plenty of us earn less than this average figure), I set off in search of a zone two two-beds near a station for just under the average London rent. That’s around £1,300/£1,400 per month… or between £600 and £700 per person – which amounts to between half and a third of your average wage. And we decided to stick to flats within zones one (ha!) and two because... well why should living within an easily commutable distance from central London be a dream?
I viewed 11 flats. At almost every viewing the agent told me other house hunters had already put deposits down, and encouraged me to outbid them. Oh, and eight out of the 11 were out of budget, but I was taken to see them anyway.
So here’s what I found that was on budget and (kind of) in the right place…
The search began in South London in Brixton - home of sourdough pizzas and Brockwell Lido. After calling almost every estate agent in the area and being laughed at for asking whether they might have a two-bed for around £1,400 a month I finally got a viewing for a place 'just outside' of Brixton.
I arrived at the estate agent’s office and we quickly 'hopped' in her car to drive 'round the corner' (15-minutes away) to what I quickly realised wasn’t actually Brixton but Streatham… zone three.
I quickly realised that the flat I was viewing was actually the converted garage of one of the houses
I got chatting to the agent while we sat in traffic. She was 22, only doing this job so that she can save up to do the MA of her dreams in psychology. There’s an irony there and she acknowledged it, 'sometimes I do worry that I’m contributing to the housing problem. But it’s a really good job and it’s flexible.' She’s right and at the end of the day it’s not her fault that successive governments have failed to build enough houses for our growing population or that more people than ever now rent (48% of 24-35 year olds compared to 21% 10 years ago) because house prices have soared while wages have stagnated… I digress….
We arrived at Killieser Avenue in Streatham Hill, a beautiful road of red brick Victorian houses. I was excited but I quickly realised that the flat I was viewing was actually the converted garage of one of said houses.
Inside it wasn’t so bad – the kitchen was pokey, and one of the bedrooms was miniature but it was clean and freshly painted. It also had a 'garden' (patch of earth) at the back where things might grow if you tried hard enough and you could probably host a barbecue with seating room for four and standing for another six people. It did, however, still definitely feel like a garage inside.
The next day the agent texted me, the landlord was willing to take a low offer – that converted garage could be mine for £1,200. Bargain! The good news is that would be £600 each, but I realised that finding something on budget in zone 2 was going to be tricky, if not impossible.
It’s not just young people trying to get a foot in the London renting market who are resigning themselves to a lifetime of expensive rent
Next up East London. I knew this was going to be hard; ironically private rent in two of the country’s poorest boroughs – Hackney and Newham – is some of the highest in the country. And it’s not just young people trying to get a foot in the London renting market who are resigning themselves to a lifetime of expensive rents, the proportion of families renting privately nationally has increased from 9% to 24%. Hackney in particular is a microcosm of London’s housing crisis.
More phone calls, cue more laughter re my budget and location demands. 'If you’re prepared to spend 1,600 or 1,700 I can help you love.' I’m not. Eventually one agent told me they had somewhere in zone 2. 'Where exactly?', I asked? 'Well, the Mayor of London says Stratford will become zone 2 next year so…'
The property, on Wise Road, was a 10-minute walk from Westfield (a blessing and a curse I would imagine). It was all right. A first-floor flat with an 'open- plan' living space, one tiny, one average-size bedroom.
I pointed out to the agent that there was a huge patch of black mould in the bathroom which was already seeping through the fresh-smelling paint. He nodded, not making eye contact, 'they have just painted over it, yes.' So how much for this palace? 'It’s about £1,300 a month, but we already have an offer on it' he said. That would be £650 each before bills if you split the rent evenly between two, and we’re still not actually in zone 2, guys.
And then – along came my first real-life zone 2 property. 'Miss Spratt, we’ve just had one come on the market. It won’t be around long so you should see it this morning.' Off I trotted to Well Street which is between Hackney Central, Homerton and Victoria Park – that holy trinity of housing.
This flat's above a kebab shop, which is a blessing and a curse. 'This is a great property, it’s going to snapped up' barked the agent. 'There’s currently an offer for £1,250 so you’d have to offer £1,300-£1,350 to secure it.' That would be around £675 each before bills.
There was a definite Del Boy vibe to the place, but I really do think that you could make the lace curtains and salmon pink lampshades work in a chintzy kind of way. And, as Kirsty Allsop would say 'location, location, location.'
Finally, North London. I viewed places as far north as Green Lanes and was offered Wood Green or Tottenham (definitely not in zone 2, which again was the purpose of this exercise). And then came my Hollyway Road Hell.
I thought Holloway Road sounded promising. Right by the tube, a short walk to Highbury as well. I was wrong. From the outside the building looked exciting – one of those mansion blocks of flats you see in period dramas and it was above a McDonald’s!
Inside it was a different story. The flats in the building were all studios with shared bathrooms and toilets in the hallways, combined with the smell of bleach, this gave the building a secondary school-meets-hostel feel. The flat I viewed was the only one in the building with its own bathroom.
It was more than the architecture working against it too. The floors and kitchen were both dirty, the beds stained and there was no living room. The bathroom was a makeshift shower cubicle, erected in a room that looked like it was once a cupboard. 'How much is this one again?' I asked. 'It’s on at £1,300 a month' the agent replied. OK, so that would be £650 each before bills. 'Thanks, I think I’ve seen enough', we walked out in silence.
At a time when London housing makes headlines on a near-weekly basis, the truth is you either have to lower your expectations on the quality of the property you want, accept you’ll have to escape to the fringes of the city or shack up with several other people, turning a living room into a bedroom if you want to cheat the numbers. Finding a single room in a house that’s been rented by the same group of people for a while on Spareroom is probably more financially viable than trying to begin a new tenancy from scratch at today’s inflated prices. And what if you've been given a month to get out of your flat my your unregulated landlord who's decided he wants to double the rent for the next tennant. What if you're on a deadline and need to take the first thing that comes up within your price range?
At the start of my search I would never have thought that a converted garage in Streatham would look like paradise but 11 viewings and many tube journeys later I was almost as anxious as I was when I was house hunting for real.
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Follow Vicky on Twitter @Victoria_Spratt
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.