Finding London Accomodation: Your Home, Your (tiny) Castle.   18 Dec 2010

Possibly NZ's greatest wine advocate in Europe, Bernard Budel shares his house-hunting experiences and tips.

Bernard Budel

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The man with the magic grape juice, Villa Maria's Bernard Budel.

Sitting in my comfortable warm lounge in London, sipping a glass of New Zealand's Villa Maria Syrah and watching the snow fall outside, I can’t help but reflect on the adventure I had acquiring this lounge. Find the right dwelling and you are one step closer to having a great London experience; get it wrong and you could waste your first few months trying to find a new place while getting out of your old place (just like making the wrong friends in the first week of school.)

Finding a flat in London. If you didn’t get shivers down your spine or break into a cold sweat after reading that, you have either never lived in London or you have no issues sharing a two beddy in Brixton with two Aussie backpackers, a South African barkeep and three Polish builders/mini-cab drivers/doormen. You will hear horror stories of people living on friends' couches for months on end. But to be honest, if you are willing to put in the hard yards you should be able to find a pad before you run out of mates willing to lend you a couch in their flat.

I had 4 days for legwork, and a few extra hours around a busy travel schedule to find a house for myself, my office, a 2 year old child and a girlfriend. The first thing I did (thanks to some sage advice from my boss) was buy an all zones/all day travel card, grab a tube map, and visit as many areas as I could to find a London house. Walk around a bit and then either circle or cross out the tube station depending on whether you got chased by some youths in hoodies or you saw a really nice pastry shop.

Once you have your ‘no-go’ stations, write on your tube map where your friends live. If your London accommodation is more than an hour away from your friends, you will not be friends for long (unless you are friends with Sheridan who is a star!). By now you should have narrowed down your search area a bit.

Next is recruiting every single real estate agent in your chosen areas. Tell them exactly what you want:

• room numbers
• bathrooms with a shower
• garden preference (don’t bother unless you are rich, lucky, or willing to live outside of zone 2)
• budget

Then let them do the work. Don’t feel bad as they will make an absolute mint off you and then forget they have ever met you (especially if the landlady’s mail continues to show up at your house 6 months after you moved in) - Ed: this is a fact!

Lastly, go and visit the shortlisted flats your helpful men and women in grey suits have found for you. Do not be disheartened if you see a few dogs before you find your perfect house. I found the absolutely perfect home, only just above budget, on the last hour of the last day that I had to find a flat before flying back to NZ to tell the girlfriend that we were moving to the other side of the world with nowhere to sleep off the jetlag.

To finish up I have a quick list of helpful hints when finding your own castle;

• 15 mins walk to a tube station is about as far away as you want to be
• If you already have a job, then access to more than one way to get to work is essential, tubes can be down, roads ice-covered and trains incapacitated by snow
• Be prepared to have less space than in New Zealand. Not sardine can less space but less than NZ
• Soho is really cool, but costs the earth; there are some other really funky areas that are within reach. If you are a Grey Lynner at heart check out Shoreditch or Camden, similar feel at quarter Soho prices.
• Check out your potential flat’s heating and make sure it all works. You will need it when it hits -6

Well it's time to top up my glass and get back to watching the snow fall, safe and snug in my lucky (and hard worked for) find.

Till next time,

Bernard

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