When to start looking for a house uni
HOW TO FIND A STUDENT HOUSE / UNI HOUSE - LIVING OFF CAMPUS
right so today's video is going to be
all about how to find student house or a
uni house when you're going to be living
off-campus in maybe your second and
third year or maybe even your first year
I'm going to give you tips on how to
find housemates how to find the actual
house and also some things to consider
once you've found a house that you like
occasionally here I'm Sophie I go to
University of Nottingham and I'm a third
year studying philosophy and I'm in my
third year house right now so it's the
second house that I've lived in in
Nottingham so I've had quite a bit of
experience looking for houses so my
first thing that I need to say is to
start looking now if not you should have
already started looking before now
because it's never too early to start
and for Nottingham I think a lot of the
houses are secured before Christmas or
in about January time so maybe I am
doing this video a little late but I
would say you've still got maybe four
weeks left of term so start looking now
so first thing I'm going to talk about
is housemates and the most important
thing here is do not live with someone
that you are kind of with if they are
boyfriend or your girlfriend I would not
advise doing that at all in case you
break up in case you have an argument
anything like that I just never think
it's a good idea to live with someone
you're kind of involved with so with
your housemates people you do want to
live with are people that you're friends
with maybe people that you're sharing
accommodation with in your first year
and you do want to make sure that they
are your friends because you don't want
to be having massive arguments when you
move in together so that can really help
if you are living together in first year
because you kind of know what someone's
like when you're living around them but
also remember that it's possible that
you have a couple of arguments because
not everyone is perfect and we
definitely had a few arguments in our
house actually that has a bit of an
understatement our house completely had
a massive argument and split into two
but for the majority of the year we were
all good you need to think about if you
want to live with boys or girls or a
mixture of both
I've lived with girls both years and not
kind of on purpose it's just naturally
what's happened and also you want to
consider how many people you want to
live with so if you have a massive
friendship group you might want to split
it into two or you might want to look
for a big house normally people have
massive houses in the second row of
unique just because the idea of it is so
cool we had a massive house of seven
girls and now I'm in a house of three
girls so it's much smaller and but I
think third year is the time we really
want to crack down on work so it's kind
of nicer to decrease the amount of
people you're living with also if you
use that
friendship group down then you're more
likely to get a nicer house or a better
deal in your house because the bigger
houses and we have more issues with them
or they might have some smaller bedrooms
which you don't want or just some other
random issues really so there's just
some things about how to pick your
housemates now I need to get on to
choosing the actual house so I would
start by looking at some local agencies
some student accommodation agencies and
I would look on maybe pages that you're
know University has to see what agencies
are recommended a lot of student
agencies get ripped to pieces because
they are really bad at ripping students
off or just like bad communication and
I've had that and actually I think three
of the main ones in Nottingham get such
a bad rep from it and but you're going
to have to probably use one of them so
although there'll be so many negative
reviews there'll be negative reviews for
everything so just try to be really
sensible with the ones you use maybe
look out for ones that are recommended
or private landlords that are
recommended also there's obviously two
routes you can go down going for an
agency or a private landlord university
students I think it's more likely to go
through an agency which we did last year
but this year we're in a house owned by
a private landlord and we kind of
thought we were bit skeptical about if
there would be problems or anything and
it has been perfect so far I don't want
to jinx it
but it has been perfect and actually way
better than our experience with an
agency last year private landlords are
harder to find though because they're
not going to be advertised with an
agency so we just found this house by I
think we were looking at other houses
and there was a notice in the window of
a house that said call this number for a
three-bed student house so we did came
in looked at it and loved it so you also
need to think about where you want to
actually live normally for most
universities there's like a student town
or a student area that's got loads of
houses that are kind of similar you want
to think about the distance between
University and kind of town where you go
out where you go shopping or eating or
just things like that and also if you're
going to be walking or getting public
transport because here there's actually
like a certain distance away well where
I am some people do walk to uni but it
takes quite a while and I prefer to get
the bus but and it is something to think
about how you're gonna get to uni so in
a minute I'm gonna talk about my
experience of finding both my houses but
first I'm gonna give you some things to
really look out for when you're looking
for your house so I would always
our students who are living in the house
how they find it say if the person who
shown you around the house kind of goes
upstairs of someone else maybe one of
you find a student who's living there
and ask them how they find it because
they will probably be really honest with
you I think the most crucial things to
look out for when you're looking in a
student house are the kitchen and the
bathroom because the kitchen you'll want
a big enough kitchen for you all to cook
or maybe most of you to cook at one time
and the bathrooms are really important
because and one uses the bathroom every
day so you don't want kind of to be
fighting over the shower or anything
like that our kitchen this year is way
better and we have one bathroom between
three people and last year we had two
bathrooms between seven people and both
of those numbers worked out fine we also
haven't had a dining room in either of
our houses or like a table last year we
didn't have a table actually this year
we do you have a small table that you
can eat at but we hardly ever use it so
I would say that's not an essential
thing you need to look for I feel like
most students eat on their lap on the
sofa anyway so another thing to consider
is whether you want bills included or
not included both of my houses have had
no bills include asleep had to sort mat
ourselves which obviously does take a
bit of work but I think it's worth it I
don't see much different in the price to
be fair and between people that I know
who have bills included and so it's just
something whether you want to consider
because one person in the group will
normally have to take the responsibility
of sorting that out when looking for
houses something that I didn't really
take notice of was like what came with
the house like extras like toasters
kettles microwaves and last year
everything kind of came with the house
whereas this year it came with
everything except a kettle and a TV and
a kettle we bought for like six pounds
and the TV I feel like most people have
like a family member who I have a spare
TV on them and we just kind of my mom
had a spare TV so we use that but yeah
maybe something to consider you might
want to make a list of everything the
house has and everything it needs so
just some last hips I think most people
are into have a house by the end of
January you can always ask your Unni for
help if you need it mind gives loads of
help and they actually looked over our
contract this year for our house and
they were really helpful picking out a
couple of things that we needed to
question also maybe get a parent to
check over your contract to they'll
probably have to sign to be the
guarantor for the house so make sure
they check over the contract as well and
you want to know kind of like what
happens if someone moves out someone
gets ill
drops out of uni all of these things so
really quickly with my houses my
first-year house we went for an agency
and we were looking for a seven bed we
looked at quite a few houses and maybe
like 20 houses we nearly signed for one
and then they turns out they wanted
checks like post-dated checks ready for
each month which we didn't kind of feel
comfortable with giving obviously we
would have the money in our bank account
but we didn't kind of want to give them
all of that control we'd rather bank
transfer the money over so we in the end
found another house which was so much
better and it didn't have a dining room
life I said we did have quite a lot of
issues with the landlord and with the
agency and but in the end it was kind of
okay and then this year like I said we
just saw a poster in the window of
another house and we were shown around
this house and loved it we did have a
lot of reservations about having a
private landlord at first but in the end
we decided that the house was just way
too nice and it was better than any
other three beds we've seen those are
the other three beds we'd seen were
really small and they just kind of
figured that since there's only three
people living there that meant you
didn't need a living area which we did
one a living area because we still like
inviting other friends around and having
little like gatherings and stuff so yeah
if you have any questions then put them
down below and I would really try to
answer them the best I can and if you're
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and I will see you next week bye
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