Quote: (06-22-2013 09:42 AM)Mr.GM Wrote:
I've been contacting some real state agencies in the UK, and received lots of ads about houses in the Barnes area. From what I've seen its a suburb. Anyone familiar with the area ?
I would also appreciate if someone here has a contact of a broket or a relocation/real state agency to recommend for me. I don't have a bank account in the UK yet and people say that is very hard to rent a place in the UK via gumtree without a record of rented properties in the uk or a regular job in the UK.
Barnes is one of the nicest parts of London, nice houses with lots of trees and it's by the river. You can walk across the river to get the underground from Hammersmith or get trains to London from Barnes or Putney. Also it's relatively close to the city, you won't be spending ages travelling.
It's a quiet area of London, there are not many places to go out late but some nice pubs to have food and a few drinks in. Sometimes it's good to live in a quiet area and go partying in other areas, London is pretty easy to get around.
I would recommend not signing anything up long term until you get to London. Get a short term place for a few weeks or month and check out the city so you know which areas you like. You could even get a cheap hotel like the travel lodge for a few weeks, sometimes this can be cheaper than renting. If you want to do this get one out by Heathrow where you can pick up a hotel for around £30 a night if you book in advance, then you can spend time travelling around London finding where you want.
You can get around not having a job or having London renting references by offering to pay more rent in advance or showing proof of funds in your banks account.
Watch out for some of the ads on gumtree, I know two people who have been scammed by people off gumtree offering flats. In both cases the person advertising didn't own the flat and pretended to rent it and asked for rent/bond payment in advance. Having said that I have used gumtree and have had no problems.
Sorry, I can't recommend a real estate agency as the one I rented from a hopeless.