Unlock Your Perfect Second Year Pad: The Ultimate House-Hunting Guide!

The rush and frantic searching of trying to find a house to move into for the second year of university is a feeling that cannot be matched. If you feel like you are in competition with every single person you meet, then you have the correct energy.

If you are still looking for a house or need help finding where to look, you have come to the right place.

Here are my top tips for finding a house that you can call your home away from home:

1. Which website do I look at?

There are many student housing websites, such as StudentCribs and UniHomes. However, my personal favourite is RightMove.

On Rightmove, you can draw a search area around where you want your house to be located, which is perfect because nobody wants to walk over 20 minutes to Uni.

 There's also an option to just show student housing. This means that the houses are specifically designed for students to live in and should have all of the amenities that students will need to survive.

2. What do I need to be looking for?

Ideally, you want a house that is at most 15-20 minutes away from your university. Having a university house only 10 minutes away motivates you so much more to go to your lectures compared to if it were a 30-minute walk.

You need your house to be fully furnished when you move in (on Rightmove, there's an option to only show furnished houses). In addition to being fully furnished, you want bills included in the rent. This makes it so much easier when you come to pay them, as the money will be sent directly to the landlord rather than to four or five different companies.

Check the amenities the house offers; if it doesn't include a washing machine and a tumble dryer, you don't want it!

3. How many people should I live with?

A good range is between 4 and 6 people in one house. Any less, there could be fallings out that result in one person being singled out and ignored. Any more, and it becomes a bit of a war zone, especially if you are all the same gender.

4. How much should I be paying?

This really depends on where you went to university. I recommend trying to find a place cheaper or in a similar price range to what you paid in the first year. So, for example, if you have been paying £190pw, you have a range of up to £200pw. 

Just make sure that everyone you plan on living with has similar expectations of price ranges so that you can look within it, and nobody will be disappointed.

5. When should I start looking?

Houses usually come onto the market around reading week or around the 10th of November. Once they're up, check them daily and save them to a list so you can return to them. Finding them early is a very good strategy, especially as they start to get reduced about a couple of weeks later.