It has been four years since I last searched for a flat on the commercial market. Returning to it now, the rental landscape is unrecognisable. Over the past two years, I have been fortunate to live first with friends, and then to move in with a friend of a friend who already had a place secured and was looking for a flatmate. I have been spared, I now appreciate, a great deal of pain.
The task should, in theory, be quite simple. A two-bed flat for around £2,000 a month in Islington, Hackney, Waltham Forest or Haringey, an area of some 40 square miles. (Yes, we have looked at moving out of London too: if you know of anywhere savings on rent aren’t cancelled out by extortionate commuting costs, please write in.) Preferably unfurnished, because my entire flat’s worth of furniture has spent the past two years growing mouldy in my grandmother’s garage – but no worries if not. Preferably with a metre of outside space – but again, no worries if not; I spent the whole of that baking lockdown summer without so much as a window box, after all. I would quite like a dishwasher, and a proper fridge-freezer, rather than one of those under-counter fridges with the tiny freezer at the top. But no, you’re quite right, I’m being unreasonable; running water and electricity are all the comforts I need.
The task should even be joyful, for the plan is for M— and I to move in together, which spells both the end of awkward hallway pleasantries with virtual-stranger flatmates when what you really want is to go to the bathroom, and the start of a new, mature (and hopefully fun) phase in our relationship. But between us and these sunlit uplands lies a dark and yawning chasm, flames licking against the rockface. This is the London rental hellscape.
The first unpleasantness is that most landlords require you to give three months’ notice that you do not wish to renew your tenancy. The problem is that flats advertised for rent are generally available either immediately or in the next month: the sooner you can move in, the more likely you are to secure it. And so you enter a strange betwixt period, knowing you need to find somewhere to live, but unable to do anything about it. Still, this has been the case for as long as I can remember, so it is at least a familiar unpleasantness.
New, though, are the extreme levels of competition. Four years ago, you could see a property online that was listed in the past week or so, book a viewing at your leisure, think on it a bit, and if you wanted it, you said: yes please, I’ll give you the money you have asked for. First come, first served. Today, demand is so high that viewings are conducted open-house style, with multiple prospective tenants viewing at once. If you want a property, you have 24 hours after seeing it to submit an offer, after which the landlord takes their pick. If you can pay more than the asking rent, or pay a chunk up front, that might help. If you can move immediately, that might help too. We cannot do either. Instead, we present ourselves as pleasant, responsible tenants and hope someone takes pity. I fear this will not be enough. One flat we could not attend the viewing for, the estate agent told me, received 17 offers.
Getting an offer accepted is not the hardest part. Even getting in the door seems impossible. Bar one, viewings for every flat I have enquired about in the past week have already been fully booked. Many of them are attended by 20-plus prospective tenants. It seems that by the time a property makes it to the search websites, you are too late. I spend hours ringing estate agents and subscribing for listing alerts, in an attempt to get ahead. Several agents have required me to fill in a form including all my personal details, income, etc, before we can even be registered as searching tenants.
It is, I suppose, like online dating, a numbers game. If you go on enough dates, eventually you will meet someone mould-free and with working plumbing, who accepts that you do not have the financial reserves of an investment banker. The problem is, it took me a year to find M—. This time, I only have eight weeks.
[See also: After a historic Labour victory, I’m choosing hope]
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