Sah wants to move to London, baby!

[surfy_sah]

hey everyone! for those of you who don't know me, I'm from a little place in South Wales called Swansea, which is an hour furuther on from Cardiff! have just come back from 6months travelling around the world and my next big thing is to move to London! why, you may ask, would I want to live there? well there's not much left in Swansea these days, every other shop is boarded up and there are no jobs but mainly, most of my friends are from events/conventions/crew and live in the MK/London-ish area and on the train, as I don't drive, it takes 3hours to get to London, 4+ to MK and a whopping 6hours !!! to get to Bedford if I go to Chevron! so it's time to shimmy, even though I love being Welsh and in Wales!

 

I spent a year+ at uni halls then 2 years in different student houses in Cardiff so this will be my first time living properly solo and paying bills and council tax and other grown-up things, yeep! I only know London by the tube map heh (so please don't reply South London, East London etc ) so am looking for any advice on where is good or bad to live but mainly where is "reasonably" priced aka am looking to share and pay about £500 per month. I don't want to live in a great big tower block, that would scare me, and I would ideally want a shower that's an actual shower and a living room, they are my only 2 stipulations! oh and just to be a tad bit fussier, some where that's on the tube map!

 

I've had a look on Gumtree and Kings Cross popped up but I've been warned that's the red light area? I have a friend down Heathrow way but he says it's expensive there, a friend in Pimlico but she pays way more than I can afford and lives in a tower block with no shower or living room!!! a friend in Canningtown which sounds nice and it's easilly accessible on the Jubilee line... Two friends lived in Tooting Broadway which was quite cool, had shops and was like a town within London (sorry bet this sounds way dense but although Swansea is a city, tis rather small!!!)

 

Ideally of course it's best to have a job then flat hunt in a specific area but at this stage am open to any and all suggests! I'm not asking you to go out there and look for the perfect flat for me, though that would be nice!!! but just any one who lives or has lived in London, for their thoughts, tips and advice!

 

thanks very much, diolch yn fawr! will stop yapping now

 

surfy sah xx

[sazzra]

Can't help that much (and I'd personally take Swansea over London any day!), but a friend lives near Green Lanes and that seemed a nice enough area. He's house sharing with two other guys, and even has a garden! The are is predominantly Turkish, so the shopping is fantastic and there are loads of 'normal' shops as well. I believe the tube is Manor Farm, but google Green Lanes and you'll get an idea.

 

With the sensible 'mum' head on though, do make sure you've got a good, solid job with a contract before trying to get there though - I've seen too many people I know end up in trouble because of jobs falling through, not being what was promised etc and London's so much dearer to get any bail outs from.

 

Good luck!

[TommyT]

..my next big thing is to move to London! why, you may ask, would I want to live there? well there's not much left in Swansea these days, every other shop is boarded up and there are no jobs but mainly, most of my friends are from events/conventions/crew and live in the MK/London-ish area...

I spent a year+ at uni halls then 2 years in different student houses in Cardiff so this will be my first time living properly solo and paying bills and council tax and other grown-up things, yeep! I only know London by the tube map heh (so please don't reply South London, East London etc ) so am looking for any advice on where is good or bad to live but mainly where is "reasonably" priced aka am looking to share and pay about £500 per month. I don't want to live in a great big tower block, that would scare me, and I would ideally want a shower that's an actual shower and a living room, they are my only 2 stipulations! oh and just to be a tad bit fussier, some where that's on the tube map!

OK, cards-on-the-table-time. I lived in London for about ten years, and I'm a firm believer that everybody (OK, most people) should live in London for a while, just to experience it. Preferably when you're young and free and haven't started to worry/had to start worrying about how you're going to bring kids up, and schools, and wouldn't it be nice to have a garden for the summertime, and could I possibly get a 4x4 down this road, and where the hell am I going to park it, and how in the name of sweet baby hay-zooss am I going to pay this colossal mortgage... (I'm sure many people do live in London and cope with that sort of stuff, but it's a lot more fun when you don't have to worry about it ) I don't live in London anymore, although I'm back there very frequently, and I'm not sure if I could go back to living there (at least, not without considerable expenditure), but I wouldn't trade the time that I did live there for anything. And part of the reason I enjoyed it so much was I had great friends there and we were young and relatively unencumbered, and mostly mildly sloshed - now most of us have kids and mortgages and grown-up jobs, so I doubt we could all ever have the time we had again - some of my friends have too many other commitments, and understandably so. That said, I always made friends there , so maybe I'd have to fall in with another lot of folk who have the ability as well as the inclination! So, as a general principle, I'd say Do It!

I've had a look on Gumtree and Kings Cross popped up but I've been warned that's the red light area?

It's a city of 8 million people - there's more than one red light area. It's true that one can see professional ladies in Kings Cross, but one can also see them around Paddington/Edgware, and also around Waterloo. I think it's a big station thing; I've noticed similar around the main station in Milan and around Gare du Nord in Paris (I'm just a general people-watcher, btw, rather than some pervy tart-spotter ) But yes, Kings Cross has had a reputation for prostitution, and drugs too. They've been talking about cleaning up/gentrifying KX since, oh WWII, or even before, but I will admit that it is better now than it was 15 years ago, and apparently considerably better than 20 or 25 years ago. Wouldn't be my choice, but I'm working off old prejudices.

I have a friend down Heathrow way but he says it's expensive there,

I lived between Osterley and Hounslow East tube stations (Piccadilly line - dark blue, towards the bottom left of the tube map) for a year. It wasn't too pricey then (and we had a huge garden, which made for the mother of all barbecues parties one weekend, but that's another story). It's a bit "out of the way", but the tube is pretty fast, and the local area was a nice community. Had friends who lived nearby in Isleworth and Brentford (which meant a bus ride to the tube, or mainline train to Clapham Junction and/or Waterloo) which were equally pleasant areas. You might find something cheap round there, but it could equally be argued that it's a bit too far out to be the full real London experience.

a friend in Pimlico but she pays way more than I can afford and lives in a tower block with no shower or living room!!!

Yeah, lovely neck of the woods which generally ranges from quite pricey to eye-watering. I never even bothered looking there (much as I would have liked to have lived there).

a friend in Canningtown which sounds nice and it's easilly accessible on the Jubilee line...

I always considered this a rough East End badland to be generally avoided, but on passing through recently it struck me more as an honest unreconstructed working-class part of the city, perhaps one of the more original untouched bits. A colleague at work also lived there for several years and said it was actually pretty OK. I do note from wikipedia though (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canning_Town) that "Canning Town remains in the top 5 per cent most deprived areas in the UK", which sounds plausible.

Two friends lived in Tooting Broadway which was quite cool, had shops and was like a town within London (sorry bet this sounds way dense but although Swansea is a city, tis rather small!!!)

A lot of people in north London get quite sniffy about "sarf of the river", but Tooting Broadway is indeed pretty OK. Not so keen on Tooting Bec though. Clapham and Balham are round there and pretty OK, though perhaps pricier.

Ideally of course it's best to have a job then flat hunt in a specific area but at this stage am open to any and all suggests!... any one who lives or has lived in London, for their thoughts, tips and advice!

Other places I've lived... The town-within-a-town feeling of Tooting B'way was also something I liked about Hammersmith/Ravenscourt Park/Chiswick, but I suspect that's too pricey. There maybe some affordable places around Shepherd's Bush, which is also pretty cool - just don't get too close to White City.

Brixton is a lot trendier and less frightening than it used to be, but can still be quite funky. Up Brixton Hill towards Streatham can be OK. Also sarf of the river is Camberwell and Denmark Hill (no tube, but mainline trains from Denmark Hill to London Bridge, Blackfriars and Victoria) which are OK. You'll find that much of south London is served by mainline train rather than tube - this integrated rail transport map might be informative. Other places south of the river worth looking at are Wandsworth, Battersea, Gypsy Hill and Primrose Hill. Dulwich is probably far too expensive and Peckham is a grim place to avoid (even if you are an Only Fools & Horses fan )

Looking north, (and back on the tube map), Camden and Islington are hugely trendy, but probably too pricey; you will probably find Holloway Road, Finsbury Park and Seven Sisters cheaper, and OK. I did live in Walthamstow for a year (end of the Victoria line, top right). Reasonable enough, but like Hounslow it's so far from central London you do feel as if you're not quite in London. I was lucky enough to live in Fulham and Kensington at various times, which I'd highly recommend, but I suspect that finding affordable stuff there now will be extremely difficult; it's the sort of thing that you find out through word of mouth through friends of friends rather than seeing in the paper.

 

Anyway, hope my ramblings down memory lane are of some vague use.

[MikeDonovan]

I live in London, on the Southbank, not far from Tower Bridge. I'd highly recommend London as a place to live, albeit with a few caveats - chief amongst them being don't expect too much about what you can find for £500 a month. You'll find somewhere, but it's going to be what's called a 'studio flat' - 9 times out of ten that will be one room and a bathroom - and it might not be incredibly 'central'.

 

Have you thought about finding some flatmates, and doing a flat or houseshare? Often this is the best way to get a decent sized place - if you all pool your resources. There's always adverts looking for flatmates, and to be perfectly frank with you 99% of the time women have a *huge* advantage in finding flatshares, because people tend to figure they are less likely to go mental, trash the place, or not pay their rent :)

 

TommyT's point are pretty good - just one comment about Kings Cross though. Don't believe what people tell you - that was certainly true of the area 20 years ago, but not now. London doesn't have a 'red light district' in the sense you mean anymore. You'll see some dodgy advert cards in phone boxes, but that's about the extent of it. Like any big city, it does happen - but it's a lot rarer than people think.

 

Location does mean a lot - you're going to find huge variance in prices depending on where in London you look. But I wouldn't be too wedded to the idea of being incredibly central. the 'tube' is by far the best metro transport system in the world... I know a lot of people complain about it, but that tends to be from a position of ignorance of the alternatives - Paris and New York are the only ones that are even close, and our Underground is far cleaner, safer, quicker, and easier than either of them.

Edited January 9, 2009 by MikeDonovan

[Princess Hannah]

I know how you are feeling...I am currently looking for a new place as i have decided that as none of my friends live in North London i am going to move to Isle of Dogs, where it seems everyone has migrated to.

This is a really nice area and as long as you don't mind moving in with other people, you can find places that are decent for around £500 per month.

Be very careful with Gumtree there are a few people constantly trying to rip you off...my favourite was "you can view the flat but you have to pay me first" So yeah...just be on the look out!

Anyway...back to the house hunting!

[BondageBarbie]

I moved to London in 2005 and I agree with TommyT - everyone should do it at some point in their life. I'm nearly 30 and I've had the time of my life here.

 

Most of my friends lived here so I decided to leave my job and move down here (I was living in Birmingham and working in Leicester at the time). I didn't have a job to come to but I found temp work quite quickly, but obviously the situation with jobs is quite different now, so you really should try and get something sorted before you get here. I found work through Reed by the way. I don't know what kind of job you want but if you're looking for something in the interim you should have a look at their website.

 

I found a flatmate on Moveflat.com - it was his flat and it was in Forest Hill in SE London (but the not so great Catford end of Forest Hill). Still, the train station was 3mins away and it was 20min journey to Central London. The best thing was the rent - I paid £380 a month including bills!!! However I didn't get on too well with that bloke (he was really untidy and didn't do the cleaning...despite it being his own flat) so I moved after 9 months.

 

Then I lived in Central London right opposite Euston Station. Despite it being close to Kings Cross I never saw any ladies of the night, but I did live next door to St Mungos (a drug rehabilitation charity) so there were often druggies around. That said, I never felt unsafe because all the UCL buildings are around there so there were always lots of people around. To be honest the flat was a bit of a dive... well, I say flat, it was actually a converted self-catering student hall of residence (the bedroom/living area/kitchen in one room with a separate bathroom) and hadn't seen a paintbrush for about 15 years! It cost £150 a week including bills. I had to pay weekly, so some months I paid £750 to live there. it was nice to live centrally but I'd never live somewhere like that again.

 

Now I live in Clapham Common with a friend; I've been here 18 months and I love it! Clapham is a really great place, there's loads to do and lots of great bars if you like that kind of thing. It's on the Northern Line (the black one) and is really well served by buses too. We have a nice flat and we pay just under £1000 between the two of us for rent, and then bills on top. Most of my friends live in South London now. One's in Clapham Junction (no tube line but 10min to London from Clapham Junction Station), a couple are in Collier's Wood, a couple in Croydon (that has fairly good transport to Central London but is much further out) and one in Streatham. I definitely prefer South London.

 

My tips would be:

- If you're going to look at a flat, try visiting the area during the day and during the evening - you'd be amazed how different the place can be after dark

- Don't necessarily be put off by the area - I live near a council estate (and some of the flats in my low-rise block are council owned too) and it's not much to look at from the outside, but the flat itself is lovely. Same is true for some other people I know too - just don't expect anything amazingly pretty for £500

- Save some cash. You will probably have to pay a deposit and a month's rent in advance to move in somewhere so if you go for somewhere at £500p/m you're going to have to fork out £1000 before you even move!

- Don't forget that the further out you live the more you'll have to pay to travel to work (if you work in Central London), so you may find you pay less rent but don't save much overall. Train fares are also really pricey if you go too far out.

 

Hope that's of some help. Good luck with the flat hunt

[TommyT]

I bow to MikeDonovan's more up-to-date knowledge of the Kings Cross area (I'm rarely "above ground" there these days) and would agree that London prostitution generally seems to be a lot more discreet than the overt street stuff in some provincial towns. I also agree with him that you're likely to get a lot more for your money if you can get a flatshare or houseshare organised - and that women do have a huge advantage for the reasons stated.

Yes, you don't have to be very central, given the coverage of the tube (and rail and DLR and buses), but some areas can feel more outlying than others - you just have to see what it's like. Some of it depends on where you're going. I was working in Kensington both when I was in Hounslow and when I was in Walthamstow. Kensington being on the western side of central London, the journey from Hounslow, further west, wasn't too bad, and given my hours started late, I could miss the worst of the rush hour. From Walthamstow, I had to get into London, and then across it, and because of the extra time, I ended up doing at least half the journey in the rush hour every day. Socially Walthamstow was OK, plus we had friends in Islington, so it was relatively quick to get to see them - it was just the journey to work that was a bit of a slog. So, nothing wrong with living out of the centre a bit, just try to make sure it's over the same side of town as your job.

And yes, it is one of the world's great metro systems (although as well as Paris and NYC I'd also give big plaudits to Sydney, and Chicago isn't bad, although not quite the same league).

Another interesting tip (from an Australian friend) - when he first moved to London, he made a point the first few months whenever he had a day off or spare time at the weekends to get a day ticket and explore London by bus - you get a great view of the place from the top of a double decker, and can pick up all sorts of ideas and feelings about different neighbourhoods that way. (He also said he reckoned he'd seen more of London than most of the lifelong Londoners and long-term residents of the city that he met).

[surfy_sah]

sorry for lack of reply, my internet at home has been down for 5days! I am very grateful for all your replies, thankyou so much for firstly taking the time to read my thread and secondly for writing back especially to TommyT, whenever I read your posts on the forum, I always find them to be very logical, well constructed, fair and normally interesting/different points of view! thanks for disecting my massive spiel at the beginning and answering each part, must have taken ages!!!

 

forgot in the first post to mention that hopefully will be moving in with my friend Donna Bradley from the crew who currently lives in Northern Ireland so will be looking for a 2 person flat and hoping to pay around £500 a month each plus bills and council tax etc

 

thanks for the warning, Princess Hannah, I had no idea!

 

have scoured the NHS website and found job to apply for in St George's, Tooting Broadway, so *fingers crossed* as I do like this whole town-within-a-city thing and it's not far to central London, like 30mins or something and I would love to be able to walk to work, how cool!

 

anyways, any more stories and advice, keep it coming!!! thanks soo much

 

sury sah

aka Sah from Swansea xx

[crippsy_99]

Ive visited friends living in london at Cockfosters (oh the hilarity of getting THAT name right the first time I went there!), Haringay, Lewisham, North Woolwich and Stoke Newington. Think there was somewhere else but cant remember where now.

As far as I know none of these places were cheap, but they wernt all that nice either! The nicer places (Cockfosters and North Woolwich) are pretty far out. Haringay and Lewisham LOOKED ok, but ive heard bad things about them, but at least their not too far out. Stoke Newington I cant really remember, but I do remember its nowhere near the tube, and took a few busses to get there.

 

Apart from my friend in Cockfosters living on his own (and that was when he was a student back in 2002), the rest were all sharing with 6-7 other people to afford a place. The house in Lewisham was interesting..6 other housemates, and the house had a big crack in the wall and looked like it was going to fall apart!

[surfy_sah]

just wanted to update this a bit for anyone who is interested!!!

 

I found a job at St George's, Tooting, and applied for it! then, shockingly, got invited to a recruitment day and interview, which was yesterday, and then today, even more shockingly, I received a call saying I'VE GOT THE JOB!!!!

 

so I will be moving to Tooting within the next 2 months, as soon as the references and CRB check and all that stuff is sorted!!! wahooo!!!

 

SAH IS LIVING THE DREAM, baby!!!!

 

 

surfy sah xx

[mrsclairecarter]

just wanted to update this a bit for anyone who is interested!!!

 

I found a job at St George's, Tooting, and applied for it! then, shockingly, got invited to a recruitment day and interview, which was yesterday, and then today, even more shockingly, I received a call saying I'VE GOT THE JOB!!!!

 

so I will be moving to Tooting within the next 2 months, as soon as the references and CRB check and all that stuff is sorted!!! wahooo!!!

 

SAH IS LIVING THE DREAM, baby!!!!

 

 

surfy sah xx

 

 

Thats great, well done hun

[amrun quessir]

Congratulations from me again even though you've had it down the phone already.

 

Be prepared for lots of visits!

[TommyT]

I found a job at St George's, Tooting, and applied for it! then, shockingly, got invited to a recruitment day and interview, which was yesterday, and then today, even more shockingly, I received a call saying I'VE GOT THE JOB!!!!

Congrats - a friend of mine went to med school at Georges some years ago, and more recently another mate of mine worked in the (non-medical) admin area for several years. Both of them had pretty positive things to say about their times there, so I figure it's probably a pretty decent place to work. Quite a community feeling to the place, I seem to recall was one common observation.

Best of luck!

[Little Miss Idiot]

I move to Wales and everyone leaves.. I should be offended.