How to find the perfect student house in Nottingham

Whether you're a fresher who's new to house hunting or a veteran third year looking for a house to do your masters in, this guide is for you.

House hunting is simultaneously exciting and arduous and it entails a lot more than just looking on Rightmove.

Number of housemates

The first thing you need to decide is how many other people you want to live with. Living with all of your mates that you met during freshers may seem like a good idea, but having an 8+ person house is guaranteed to be a nightmare.

The perfect house has between 4-6 tenants; enough so you are surrounded by your friends, but not too many that the house is a literal dump.

Another aspect to consider is the extras some people come with. Will one of your friends have a partner that will become an extra housemate? Do they always have friends coming up to visit them? If so, you may want to keep this in mind when deciding if you want to live with them, and their extras.

Lenton vs. Dunkirk vs. Beeston

Once you've decided how many housemates you want, and who they are going to be, you need to agree on which area of Nottingham you are going to live in.

There are pros and cons to each area, you need to decide which pros you care about the most. Which is more important to you: proximity to town or to your lectures?

Letting agency

Which letting agency you use isn't usually a top priority, but picking one with a good reputation will make all the difference before and after you've moved in.

Do some research on the letting agencies that go above and beyond and avoid the agencies that are severly lacking…

Buy/Sell is a good place to find some horror stories that will put you off certain infamous letting agencies.

Proximity to food shops

A very important factor that is often overlooked when house hunting is the distance to supermarkets. If you aren't bringing a car with you to uni then you may have to carry your heavy shopping a long way home.

So do yourself a favour a live near a store where you can at least buy the bare essentials: pot noodles and booze.

Room sizes

Most houses have the dreaded 'box room' and if you're as unlucky as I am you will no doubt pull that room out of the hat. To avoid this try to look for a house with evenly sized rooms.

Number of bathrooms

This is another easily overlooked essential. Sharing two showers between 6 people may sound fine until you need to leave to go to your 9am but you look like a drowned rat because someone else is in the bathroom.

Keep all these points in mind while house hunting and maybe, just maybe, you'll find the perfect house.