How To Find The Best Student Accommodation or House

In this quick blog, I want to help you to know how to find the best student accommodation or house. There will be some obvious ways in order to find the best places, however, hopefully, here there are some tips and tricks you can take away and use for the next year.

Before we carry on, I would like to say that the best houses will usually go first, it’s the same with anything and if you are lucky to get a good place, make sure you re-book.

What is ‘best student accommodation’?

Helps if we know what we are looking for. My definition goes something like this:

• Value for money
• Designed well
• Functional for everyone
• Good location
• Good landlords or letting agents

How to Find These

I won’t lie if you are wanting to find a good place, you need to be quick and organised. Why? Because you can view the property first, however, it’s all fair game until everyone signs the contracts and pays the deposit. Until that point, it is open and as soon as you do that, the property will be reserved for you.

A good way is to see who currently lives in a good house at the moment and find out who it is managed or owned by. This way you can have a look at the rest of their houses!

Search on websites and marketplaces. The reason for this is because some of the best student houses won’t reach the top page of Google and you can be missing a lot of very good places by only looking on the first page. This is why these types of websites exist.

Do the research upfront, make sure that you research everything you need to know before you go and view the property. The reason for this is because that if you like it you can then go and pay your deposit if you want to reserve the house!

Get everyone in the group to view it at the same time and make sure it’s an in-person viewing if possible. Why? Then you don’t need to view it twice which will lose you time and by viewing it in-person you can see everything close up, speak to the agent and see if the house will work for you.

Quick Signs of Good Quality Landlords & Houses

• Well kept houses
• They have a good design and have a lot of common sense built in
• Reasonable prices
• Well maintained houses
• Good communications
• Students often re-book
• Good sized spaces for people to live in
• Advertised well and have good solid processes.

These are just some and I am sure the list can carry on, but these are just some of the things that come to my mind if I was walking around a student house and wanted to know if they were any good without asking them.

There have been a few occasions where a landlord has shown a student around a house that is still in renovation but they have shown them other properties and put together a pack for students. This can and does work but be sure to have a look at some other factors like social media, their website to verify their credibility.

Quick Signs you Might Need to Investigate More

• Tired houses – They might be due a refurbishment though
• Small rooms
• There is no design and nothing has been thought about in the house
• Poor reputation online and from other students
• Social spaces are small
• They might not have council licenses or accreditations – not the be all and end all, but many councils have certain standards landlords must adhere to.

If there is anything you would like to add, please message me and I will be happy to add it in!