Moving out of Halls

The bubble of first year Uni life is great. Sometimes so great, that thinking about leaving it and the comfort of Halls when moving into Second Year, makes life way too stressful. I’ll tell you straight up that it is a stressful experience looking for somewhere to live in second year, but I hope the advice in the rest of this post will help ease some of your concerns and answer some of your questions.

The first, and honestly probably the hardest part of the whole experience, is choosing who to live with. Ah memories. At the end of the day, whatever happens, the odds are you won’t live far away from any of your friends so don’t be too worried, but if you have the chance, pick people you get on with, people who you trust, people who will look after you and people who are reliable. I hear a lot of people hesitating to live with people on their course because it may be too intense. Let me tell you, there is nothing more intense than living with people you can’t stand. Right now I live with two of my best friends at Uni and I never think of them as housemates. They’re my friends. This is great for many reasons. Emotionally, you never know when you may have a hard moment, day or week, so if your friend is living just down the landing, this is a massive help. I also find this works out better financially. For example, we do all our food and house shopping together and split the bill three ways. It prevents arguments and eating together is not only good for us socially, it’s also more cost effective.

Secondly, on this theme, you should think about your budget. Halls are often all inclusive, but this is not always the case with houses. Read all the details carefully on websites etc and know your budget before you start looking. There’s no point looking at a beautiful house which is way above what you can afford. You will only be disappointed. And obviously remember when they say £350 per calendar month, that figure may not include bills (and will definitely not include food) which could bring you up to around £400 in the winter months, depending on where in the UK you live, etc.

Next is of course location. When the search actually begins this is the biggest factor in my opinion and can also lead to some discrepancy. The classic argument is whether to be close to town or close to Uni. Often it doesn’t have to be either/or. Most University cities have great transport links which would get you to and from your house in no time at all. Areas close to Uni which are full of student houses are not always the best. You might think, ‘Great I’ll be surrounded by loads of students.’ But I promise you when next door are throwing a party till 5am and you have a 9am the same morning you will seriously question your decisions.  Also, for the gals, think about where you would feel safe travelling too and from at night. I live in the supposedly ‘safest city in the UK’ and there have been several disturbing incidents lately. Don’t let that be you, by being naive about travel in the evenings and at night.

So, after all that is decided, the search commences. I’d like to highlight that it seems to be a common misconception that the earlier you find a house for second year, the better. This is NOT always true. For various reasons we ended up securing a house very late, and whilst I would not recommend securing anything too late (perhaps May should be the latest time), we were not ripped off, and spent a lot less on things like Administrative costs and ‘Deposits’. Estate agents know that students panic when it comes to finding a house and they take advantage of this. Our six friends paid £300 each when they got their house in December of first year, of which they will never see back. We paid £33 each for admin and a deposit, which, all being well, we should get back within 2 weeks of moving out. (And just as a side note, your friends from December may very well not be your friends by February.)

Houses become available ALL the time, so within reason, take your time. And please please please remember: a student’s money is just as good as anyone else’s. Do NOT compromise over things like ‘a bit of mould’, or ‘a really old’ boiler. That is unfair on you and you will have problems down the line. Obviously, you have to remember that you won’t be in this house forever, so be reasonable, but your Landlords should be reasonable too.

Good luck!

-Alex