Welcome

Understanding the Housing Market: Market Conditions

Before getting into details about housing, it is important to look at the "big picture". You are entering the housing market, maybe for the first time, and whether you are living in university of private sector accommodation, the main determinants of what you can rent will be decided by the particular factors of your local housing market.

How expensive is it to live in your area?
If there an accommodation surplus or a shortage?
Is there enough good quality rented housing?

These answers to these questions will determine when you should look for housing, how much you can be expected to pay and how much you can negotiate and what you can expect to rent. It is not good trying to drive a hard bargain with a property owner if they can let the property to others that afternoon and it is no good paying a high rent when there are plenty of cheaper, comparative properties available.

To give you some idea of the housing market here are a few indicators:

Cost

Although rents vary the average cost of rents in your area are £650 per calendar month
This could be described as an high cost housing area
The number of students housed directly by the institution is 30
The number of students housed in the private sector is 270
There is a small surplus of housing