As mentioned during my previous blog, in my second year, instead of living in on-campus accommodation, I rent a house with my friends. In this blog, I would like to share my thoughts on living out.
When did you start preparing?
Usually, a 3-5 people house is available for student rental. After confirming who are you going to live with for the coming year, the four of us compromise the type of houses we are looking for. For instance, we would like 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms house with no more than 20 minutes’ walk away from the main campus. We also set our budget to narrow down our search. We started our search as early as December. We attend different housing fairs organised by uni, as well as searching on different agencies. If we came across some ‘potential houses’, we would request house viewing. I found it quite important for house viewing (if possible) as the photos might look quite different from the actual viewing. And you could also check if the location is ok for you as well. It took us around 2months to find the house we are happy with. And after that, it will be loads of paperwork and admin stuff xd (I am not going to put the details here, but if you are interested in it, do comment below and I will try my best to answer them:)
What was the hardest thing you found living out?
As we are unfamiliar and have no experience renting a house in the U.K. I would say, it takes a lot of time for researching. But the school is very helpful, and they have supported us during our rental process. Asking current students that are living out are also a good way to get an idea of the procedures. And as we are responsible for all the bills (including energy, water, wifi and rental), we found confusing at the start, but after setting up and settling in, things turn out to be working fine, and we were pleased with ourselves too xd
How’s your overall rental experience?
As we all stay in flats back in Hong Kong, we found it so cool living in a house! And it is super fun to live with your friends. I found it so nice to always have someone to chat with, to study with, and to cook within the house. And as many of our friends just live next door, so we could just bump into each other’s house for gathering. Many do question if renting out is cheaper than staying on campus. TBH, I would say it’s more or less the same xx But I would consider it as a completely different experience. And I do recommend spending one year living out with friends:)
Hope this blog has given you a brief glance at living out and you will find it interesting :p
