Star Squid Blog

Let's say you're undertaking the daunting task of finding a flat to rent outside of London. Let's say you're playing on hard mode and have a cat as well as a husband with noise sensitivity. You don't drive, so you need to be within 1 mile of a train station towards London. Fortunately you don't mind where you'll be moving exactly, though you prefer places with access to waterways.

It's important to have a system.

We'll be using rightmove.co.uk as out main tool. Choose your first train station and set your constraints: distance, budget, number of rooms, etc.

Save the results in a bookmark. Now change the train station, bookmark the results, repeat about 40 times. Don't worry, if you stay on top of things, you will only need to go through all the results once, the first time you set this up.

Now when reviewing the individual ad, it's important to eliminate bad matches as quickly as possible without letting ourselves be distracted by stuff like pretty, staged photos. First we look at the 'available from' field. Not the right date? Close the tab.

Next we look at the map. We already know it's walking distance to the station, but is it near a busy road? Near a school, pub, train station or another source of noise? This is the time to find out, and it can be pretty subjective. Use photos to help you figure out which side each window is pointing to and try to assess how loud it's likely to be.

Time to read the description! Usually it doesn't have relevent information, but if they mention outright that pets are not accepted, that saves time.

You can review the photos as well, saying 'meh' to yourself if you see something ugly, but you are pretty desperate, aren't you. It's probably not on fire, but look out for mouldy patches on walls or straight-up holes in the ceiling.

If the property passes initial checks, put the link and basic information in a spreadsheet for your husband to review. After all, he is the one who has to judge the noisiness factor and potential-to-price ratio.

After spousal approval, you should have anywhere between 3-10 properties left on your list. Sort by price ascending and start calling each agent, asking if the landlord is okay with a cat being kept at the flat. If you're lucky, one will say yes, of course, and act like it's the most natural thing in the world. Set an appointment to view and agree to the first proposed time - if you don't, someone else will, and they will make an offer and be accepted on the spot. Rental flats within commuting distance from London go off the market only slightly slower than fresh rolls in your local Polish deli.

Now just because you maybe have an appointment waiting, don't sit on your laurels. Don't even let yourself imagine what it's like living in that new place. Instead, every day (twice a day if you're really determined) open all your saved search results and check properties marked 'added today'.

Continue for 3 weeks, fighting the discouragement and dread creeping into your soul, and there may come a day when you call a place and they'll say that not only is the flat you're calling about available to you, they just got two similar ones and want to show you all of them.

Don't erase your attempts from the spreadsheet. Use them to remind yourself that you've done a lot of work, even if you don't have much in the way of results.