Finding living accommodation in London.

I don’t suppose this will be much help but my daughter after viewing a lot of places with as you say a lot of viewers, finally got a two bedroom flat in St Albans for £1400 a month, I was absolutely shocked…

Have they tried an app like 'Nextdoor' it has local groups and i do see people advertising places or asking for accommodation on there. Search specific areas or ask for accommodation there.

Accommodation in London is in short supply unless you can afford high prices. I’m afraid that’s just a fact. There’s no magic hints or secrets.

Anything more affordable will have hundreds of applicants and even then they will bid each other up.

I understand wanting to live in London when you’re young. I did it myself!

But honestly I think they may need to commute until their salaries match London prices. Unless you have a spare half million or so to buy them something. It would be a good investment.

Something to bear in mind is that it takes less time to get Kngs Cross on a fast train from somewhere like StNeots in Cambridgeshire than it does to get there from a London Borough like Merton or Ealing.

Thank you tanith. I am familiar with my local Nextdoor site, I will check with the GCs, it would be worth a try. They have been warned about scams where desperate people pay a deposit on an unseen privately advertised place, only to find it doesn't exist!

I do wish them luck and after my DS’s recent experience, it’s very difficult. Commuting is probably the only answer.

My DS lives near St Albans and had rented a flat for 10 years there. The landlord suddenly wanted the flat so DS had two months to find another. He got one in Harpenden, close to St Albans. Even though he lives in the area, he missed out on so many. His new 2 bedroom flat is £1450 pm. That’s an average price !

He has to get into London regularly and the station at Harpenden has regular trains that get him there in about 30 mins.

Perhaps they could look at alternatives like Homeshare where they live in an elderly person's home in return for keeping an eye on them and providing some friendship... it costs very little and gives great benefit to all

My daughter let her spare room here:
m.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/london?aff=1120&KW=houseshare+londonBROAD&ag=houseshare&gclid=CjwKCAjwv4SaBhBPEiwA9YzZvNJYEk540c2Fe-fMk0v-Hxp18z4ew8AOGlWrU-KC7EK-REtDWff-FBoCjhcQAvD_BwE

Both my daughters had house-shares when they first moved to London. One with one other and one in a house of 5 people.

Maybe they'd be better looking for a room in a flat than one of their own. Just to begin with. DD did that and I paid for her oyster card. Transport costs have to be factored in if living out with the city.

The thing about house shares is you will get to meet the flatmates and they will "choose" who they think will fit.
It can give you a ready-made intro into the area and lead to friendships or you can live very separately under one roof.

My sons both had house/flatshares in Oxford where you have London type prices.

Working in London can prove a nightmare with regard to housing. No easy fix.

However, London is such a big place. According to where their new workplaces are they need to consider looking outside of London or at its edges for accommodation close to an easy (although probably expensive) commute.

So, (just one example), if they are working in Central London they could look for somewhere to live at the other end of the Central Line in Essex. This can be applied to all the underground system. Even outside rooms will not be cheap, but may be nicer and slightly less expensive.

Apartments in Bexley are available from £1300 for 2 bed.

Google says it’s the cheapest place to rent, journey into central London 45 minutes. Rightmove has a few.

Didcot to Paddington is the same journey time, but would cost thousands of pounds per year.

My daughter is 26 and always looks at this website. I hope they can rent within a walk to an underground station, they can work out their commute at approx 2 minutes per stop.

www.spareroom.co.uk/

Are your grandchildren looking for a flat on their own? It is unlikely they could afford that. Most young people live in a flat share, though I imagine these are now also difficult to get. It might be easier to find lodgings i.e. a room to rent in someone's house.
If you look for areas in outer boroughs on a train line into the right part of central London for their jobs, an ad on local Facebook groups might help. A lot of housing is posted on FB marketplace. SE London is generally the cheapest part of London, along with Croydon and some parts of East London.

Thank you for the suggestions. They are hoping for house/flat share rooms, that is what they did as students, the main site they are trying is the spareroom one.
I have told them that they might have to be pushy (shyness runs in the family!!) in order to be chosen. If GS tells them that he loves cleaning, which he does, it could help!

Can the places they are going to work at be of assistance? Have they asked the HR departments?
I only say this because we used to let a flat, and sometimes a room in our London house, and the way we found lodgers was to send accommodation details to reputable employers (schools, hospitals, banks etc) where we knew people would have regular income and stay more than a few months. The HR departments would usually be switched on enough to then contact us if they had someone who required accommodation. Good staff are worth looking after. Tell your DGC to be proactive and ask.
I agree with others that they should either choose an area near their work or if not look outside the capital. London is huge, travelling through it, especially say East to North takes forever by tube because you have to go in to town to come out.
Good luck.

Young people don't go into 'digs' any more. Whatever happened to them?

I live in zone 5 in London and no longer work but when I did I was lucky if my tube broke down there were other methods of getting home without an expensive minicab.

I have free travel now, I dread to think how much it costs if I was still working.

Hemel Hempstead offers opportunities for renting. Easy commute to London Euston. Not quite as nice as St Albans, Harpenden or Berkhamsted, but reasonable

My son gave up trying to find accommodation in London and resigned himself to 12 hour days and £500 a month on the train.

All 3 of my daughters have lived in London- though it was some years ago for the oldest.... She moved to Colchester for work which turned out to be an easy commute for her husband as he was 2 mins on foot from Liverpool Street.
Less than 1 hr 15.

The other two (recently) always found at least acceptable accommodation. One had a share of a pretty spacious mansion flat until this year.
A 12 hour day is long but how much of it is travel NotaGran?

Thank you all for your input. They are still looking hard, including further out.

DGD has gone off on the train today for her first day at work. It is a late start for induction, but we shall see how the journey goes. The Oxford Tube bus is another alternative on rail strike days. Her mother, my DD, has had to downsize recently for financial reasons, so GD is sleeping on the sofa with all her boxed 'stuff' stacked at one end of the room, not ideal.

It’s very expensive in the south east especially in towns which are attractive with coffee shops and quirky independent businesses but there are poorer/cheaper ie less attractive areas where properties are more reasonable. Not everyone in the south east is wealthy and if you aren’t working in finance or are something in the city it’s a struggle.
Look along the towns on the Thames estuary where in comparison there are more affordable properties.

I've always felt that London has to be the weirdest of cities for accommodation and a bit baffling for those who don't live there. Take somewhere like Bethnal Green for example where you get million pound houses next to tower blocks, or Camden where one minute you have opulence, and then round the next corner poverty. It makes it very difficult for young people searching for accommodation, but my advice would be not to discount anywhere or anything, other than on grounds of travelling and costs.

One of my DD had a flat share which cost a fortune even years ago and my nephew looked for a house share a few years later.

Both paid a lot for what they got but I think the house share with several others was better value.