Our biggest tip for when to find your accommodation is to start early. The earlier you start looking, the more options will be available to you, and the less stressful things will be if you don't find something immediately. If you leave looking for accommodation till later in the season, you run the risk of having to settle for something which doesn't meet all your criteria.
Starting Your First Year?
While not unheard of, it's rare for new students at university to be looking for private accommodation. Student hall accommodation will normally be offered to you as a part of the application process, and then confirmed when you've met the requirements of the offer. If you were late applying or given a spot through clearing, you may find that the university-owned living options don't match the glamorous student lifestyle you were expecting. In this case, you may find that looking for private accommodation could be a better option. If you decide to go down this route, it's always best to go for viewings and discuss the options with the landlord or agent.
Second Year and Beyond
The rush for finding the best private accommodation can be hectic, as all the students try to sort something for the next academic year. You shouldn't panic though, there'll always be something available so you have somewhere to stay during your studies. But, if you want the best possible chance of finding something that meets all of your criteria, you should start looking sooner rather than later.
You need to make some decisions so you know what to look for, such as whether you want to live with your friends. These may be people from your course or friends you've made from your halls of residence. Once you know how many people you want to live with, you can start looking for suitably sized accommodation.
Other considerations are the distance of the accommodation from your university and how long it will take you to get to amenities such as the local supermarket. You may find accommodation which is the perfect size with the right number of bedrooms, but it's a much longer walk to your lectures than you may like. In these instances, you and your friends will need to weigh up the options and make some hard decisions, before another group decides to sign the contract.
What Happens Next?
Once you've found the ideal shared accommodation, you and your friends have had a viewing, you've weighed up the pros and cons, what happens next? Don't rush into signing the contract. If you're at all unsure about it, you should wait and try and resolve the issue. Otherwise, you may end up feeling trapped in a commitment, which could spoil your university experience.
Once you're happy with everything and you've signed the contract; congratulations! You can now focus on your studies, safe in the knowledge that you have some great accommodation to live in during the next academic year.
How can Unihousing Help?
Unihousing is a landlord and accommodation provider near The University of Birmingham since 1984. We own all of our accommodation in the student village of Selly Oak, which means we can provide quick response times to repairs using our team of qualified tradesmen. We deal directly with our tenants from our property office on Bristol Road in Selly Oak, just a short distance from all of our student properties.
Unihousing was selected as the Number 1 Student Letting Agent in Birmingham by the UK's biggest fresher community, Unifresher.
