We find you’ll get pretty sick of hostels after a few days, especially if you have a snorer in there – or that guy who doesn’t like wearing clothes!
Many of you would have experienced the flat hunting back home, this isn’t much different except it will cost you more and you will have a fair bit of competition.
New to the world of flatting? It isn’t scary! You have our community to ask at any time – our very useful Kiwi Chat group is full of helpful people who can answer your questions, it’s a separate page to our main page but has people just like you in there always happy to help!
We’ll cover the main questions you may have below.
Where to live?
Everybody has their favourite spots in London, just like you would back home. For decades our lot have drifted all around West London. Areas like Shepherds Bush, Acton, Hammersmith, Putney, Southfields, Wimbledon, Wandsworth and Clapham are where you’ll find most of us now. West is seen as having big parks and is pretty suburban. With all areas in London there are nice parks and dodgy parts, so don’t let a news article put you off living in a particular area.
More and more Kiwis are branching into East London too – and they love being close to the city and other attractions too. We advise that you keep an open mind about where you will end up and feel free to ask our Kiwi Chat group anytime for advice. Then hit our Live Flats to find a place for you! We find there are more flats available than people, so have a good search there or on our Facebook page.
How Much?
We hope you saved your pennies/cents back home at this can be a little shock if you didn’t plan ahead. You can be expected to pay your deposit and month up front when moving into any flat. With the costs of single rooms getting over £700+ a month then you can see yourself paying a lot to just get into a room! We highly recommend you see our Live Flats to get an idea of what everything is costing today.
Support a Kiwi company in London and get Please Connect Me to help you get all your flat utilities all sorted! Please Connect Me can quickly get you hooked up with all the utilities you need incl internet and also your Council Tax!
Helpful Tips
You will see that many flats on offer are people leaving their rooms and passing it on to new tenants. In these instances, you’ll be paying the deposit to the person leaving and taking over their rent obligations. This is extremely common here – and it’s done out of convenience and saving money redoing contracts with agencies and landlords. As common as it is, don’t be afraid to check with the flatmates and the person leaving all the information about bills and the length of tenancy. The general expectation is that when you leave you will then find a person to take your room and they pay you the deposit, the circle of life continues! If in doubt, ask! If you still don’t feel right, either ask our community or look for another room.
If you need help moving yourself from flat to flat, look at getting an UberXL or if you need more help, hit up the guys from Kiwi Movers or do a price/service comparison at Compare the Man and Van