Set a Budget and Criteria for Your Shared House
Before doing anything, you should establish your budget for the house. You never know what people’s financial situation is, so getting money out of the way sooner rather than later, will ensure you are all on the same page. There is no point in looking at properties that are out of your price range, and you can save yourself a lot of time by setting a budget early on.
Spend Time on House Hunting Daily
It’s a good idea to dedicate even a small amount of time daily to house hunting. You don’t need to spend hours searching all over the place, but instead, keeping an eye on various websites will ensure you can spot any new properties and get in for a viewing quickly. Nice properties tend to go pretty quickly, so if you can be proactive, you are more likely to find a property you are really happy with.
Don’t Feel Pressured to Commit on the Spot
It’s important for you and your housemates to find a property that best suits your needs and budget. Although properties can be rented out fairly quickly, it’s ok to go home and have a discussion privately with your housemates. Just make sure you call the letting agent as soon as you have decided so that you don’t miss out on your desired house!
View The Property Before You Sign a Contract
When looking for student accommodation, viewings are really important. You never really know what state the property is in until you view it. Even if the photos look decent, it can still be quite difficult to visualise the space. For international students, we understand this can be quite tricky. Unihousing aims to have video tours provided for our studios and houses, which will help tenants visualise the space, size and quality of the property.
Stay On Top of the Admin
As exciting as the thought of receiving the keys to your new house is, there is a lot of paperwork and admin that has to happen first. Renting as a student will likely require you and your housemates to provide several forms of ID, proof of income and guarantor information. Make sure you have all of this ready beforehand, which will speed the process up and keep the letting agents off of your back!
Next, it’s time to read through your tenancy agreements and start an application. After reading your agreements thoroughly, we would advise you send them to a parent or guardian to look through, to ensure there aren’t any clauses that you might not have understood or noticed. After signing and returning the tenancy agreement, you will be required to pay an application fee and likely a deposit as well, so make sure you have discussed this with your housemates and have the funds ready to go.
Finding Student Accommodation with Unihousing
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.
