Flat hunting in London – Part 3

OK. A little better today. I saw two flats:

This one: http://www.greene.co.uk/home/property?propertyid=18825

…and this one: http://www.pearl-homes.com/site/go/viewParticulars?propertyID=53732

They both look good in the pictures. The first one (Hillfield Road) is slick and modern. The pictures carefully avoid the spots where the carpet is coming off and where the wall paper is pealing, I am told, because of a leak from the upper floor. I am also assured that both things will be fixed as soon as the current tenants move out.

I don’t know what kind of camera lenses estate agents use, but this place is SMALL (I mean SMALL) it feels like a hotel or like a chalet. The bedrooms are probably too small to fit a desk. Overall better than anything seen so far, but I am afraid that, if I moved there, it would soon feel claustrophobic.

Off topic note: While talking to me, the estate agent sat down on the armrest of the couch kept bouncing up and down. For a moment I thought he was a lemming about to explode. If anyone knows a cure for this condition, let me know.

The second flat (Chichele Road) is bigger. The floor plan is weird, as invariably happens with conversion flats, but overall not bad. There are three rooms and a kitchen. The pictures obviously show the two nicer rooms and not third room, which is smaller, carpeted, and has two small windows.

Overall this is probably the best so far. We can use the two bigger rooms as bedrooms; they have enough space for a desk, a bookcase, etc. We can use the smaller room, which is by the kitchen, as a lounge.

This could well be my new home for a while. I’ll call the estate agent tomorrow. I hope it’s going to be furnished decently.

I am also asking myself: Will the little lounge be suitable to play poker?

If we use the big rooms as bedrooms, at the house warming party, my bed could also be the dance floor.

Stay tuned… a house warming party may be coming your way…

Flat hunting in London – Part 2

This is what happens when I finally get an appointment to view a flat.

I fix an appointment for 2 in the afternoon. Most people work until 5 or 6pm in the UK, but also many agencies close at 6pm. So to view a flat I actually have to take time off work.

In the morning the agency calls me to confirm the appointment. They also ask me if I can make it for 12 noon. They explain that this is a really good deal, many people have booked viewings, and it may be already gone by the time I see it. Some sales tricks never fade away.

A CHC (clueless hot chick) meets me at the property.

The CHC has the key for the flat, but not the key to enter the building. So she buzzes a few flats, eventually someone answers and lets us in.

“Have you ever seen this flat?”, I ask.

“No”, she replies.

She tries to open the first door we encounter. It’s the wrong one, when someone from the inside is about to open the door, the CHC runs away like a schoolgirl hoping not to get caught. We are viewing flat B, perhaps the second door would have been a better choice.

Eventually we enter the right flat. The carpet is my favourite shade of vomit-brown.

The CHC tells me: “on your right there is the kitchen…”

I think: “I can see it, you have never been here, you know as much as I do!”.

The tenants are still living in the flat…

Me: Is all this furniture staying?

CHC: Some belongs to the current tenants.

Me: OK, but what’s staying.

CHC: All the basics

I give up

 

We go upstairs. There is the WC in one room and the rest of the bathroom in another room. I always find this weird.

In the room where there is “the rest of the bathroom” I sadly notice that the sink has two taps, one for the hot water and one for the cold water. The system does not support warm water.

I also notice that, over the sink, where you’d expect to find a mirror, the enlightened designers of this flat have placed a window.

I think: “Should I try the shower?” I know it’s not going to be good, but I do it anyway. When I feel the water I immediately think of when, at the age of five, my sister and I used to fill our mouth with water and squeeze the water out through our teeth at each other. Good memories, but when I take a shower in the morning, I need a more invigorating experience.

The bathroom floor is made of low-quality PVC. It could have been worse. It could have been carpet.

Flat hunting in London

Flat hunting in London is a traumatic, tragic, and comic experience. This is more or less how it goes:

1) You look at websites, rightmove, findaproperty, primelocation, etc.

2) You see many overpriced properties.

3) The description is crap:

• some of the “features” include “dimmer light” and “power point”
• there is hardly ever a floor plan
• Occasionally you find the room size, but it’s in feet even if the UK has started to adopt the metric system in 1973.
• Some of the rooms are as small as 2.5×2.5m. Note that most of continental Europe rooms smaller than nine square meters are not considered habitable.
• The pictures only include the better rooms never the odd-shaped single room, which is always there.

4) When you find something that maybe works for you, you call the agency, normally to find out that the property has already been let.

5) After repeating the process a few times, you realise that all websites are out of date. Agencies are slow in putting new ads and leave them on the website to give the illusion that they have many properties available.

6) The websites are therefore only useful to give you an idea of the prices in different areas of the city and to find out the agencies that operate each area.

The process then changes as follows:

1) Find the areas that you can afford and that are not miles away from where you work.

2) Gather the name and phone number of the agencies in those areas.

3) Call the agencies to find out if they have anything available that is suitable for you.

…which is hardly the way in which the websites were intended to be used.