Accommodation in Manchester: my personal pros and cons of living in a house.

Hello everyone!

My name is Paula and for a year I lived in a shared house in Manchester. In this post I am going to give you the pros and cons that I have gathered with time, and why I believe living in a house is the best option.

Let's start with how I found the house and the difficulties that come with finding accommodation. Manchester is a student city, which means that houses vanish from the market en masse between the months of July and August. The tendency among English students is to live in a halls of residence for their first year of university and then move in to a house with their friends, which if you opt to live in a student flat you will probably be sharing with people around the age of 18-19 from here on out (youngsters).

In my case, I decided to go for five days in July to look for a house (Ryanair ftw) so as not to leave it to the last minute and, above all, be able to see the state of the flats for myself. I strongly recommend that you either go to see them in person or you a ask for a Skype tour (because in five days I saw everything... ). After five days of non-stop visits (looking on the internet to arrange meetings either through different websites or asking agencies that offer student rentals) I was left with two houses: a decent room that was in the student area (Fallowfield) that is about a 20 minute bus ride from the uni, or a super big room that was a 10 minute walk from the uni that was a lot cheaper (£273 per week). Even though there were no flatmates yet in the second house, I decided to take the risk and sign the contract with the landlord (once in Madrid, I was able to do it via email). Who was going to tell me the reason that the house was cheaper was because of the location... but we will talk about that later on. My house had two stories, four bedrooms and I took the only room on the bottom floor, which was enormous even though it was the second biggest in the house. The kitchen was also really big, even though there was only one bathroom. Overall, quite a good house.

After living in the house for one year, a few experiences made me realise that you need to take care and ask A LOT of questions before choosing. Here are my pros and cons of living in the house that I lived in.

CONS

• The house was EXTREMELY cold. There was hardly any form of insulation, and although the heating was powerful, we experienced a lot of cold due to the fact that we had to restrict its use because we had to pay almost £150 per person in bills.
• The house was in the worst area of Manchester. Yes, the area where they tell you not to go alone. At least it was on the edge of the neighbourhood and, although we were the only students, we never had a problem with anyone face to face. Mind you, our house was broken into twice when we weren't there. Guys, DON'T LIVE IN MOSS SIDE.
• If you are unlucky enough to have a filthy housemate, it can be very uncomfortable. Out of the four of us, one girl was completely useless with regard to cleaning and we were cleaning up after her all year. She wasn't very friendly either.
• You need to assume that your house will be a party place.
• The landlords/landladies can be a little weird. My landlord came to replace things and change furniture quite quickly but, for example, he gave us some absurd clauses in the contract such as having to uproot the grass on the front lawn at the end of the year so that it was left the way we found it (there was no lawnmower, we had to do it with our hands).

PROS

• If you are lucky enough to live with cool housemates, it will be the best experience of your life. They will become your family as you will be sharing food, parties and cleaning chores with them. I was lucky in that, after signing the contract, two Swiss Erasmus students rented two of the rooms in the house and still today they are some of my best friends and we visit each other often.
• Independence but with communal spaces. Having your own bedroom is great and makes you feel really independent. But being in your room all day can get claustrophobic, and being able to leave to study in the living room or to cook in a kitchen that isn't shared with a zillion people is a luxury.
• Your house will be the party HQ (it is as much a con as it is a pro).
• My house in particular was really well located in relation to the uni and supermarkets. The small detail is the thing about the area, but oh weeeeell.
• If you are here to study (Erasmus students also come for this), living in a house gives you a lot more tranquillity and concentration than living in a hall of residence.
• It is a taste of how you are going to be living when you are an adult, and afterwards you won't want to live with your parents again.

Lastly, I'd like to finish with a few recommendations for those who are looking for a flat in Manchester. These are the must-ask questions for the landlords and agencies to know if a house is worth it or not.

1. "Are the bills included? " If the answer is yes, crank up the heating. If the answer is no, ask for a monthly estimation.
2. "How is the insulation in the house? Are the appliances energy saving? " This helps to know if the consumption of the house is high or low, and also to know the impact of living in this house if you are interested in the environment.
3. "Is the house safe? Does it have an alarm? Lock in the back entrance? " Ok, Manchester isn't a super safe city outside of the centre of the centre. So the more barriers you can put between yourself and danger the better.
4. "Is the neighbourhood student friendly? Is it a family neighbourhood? Does it have supermarkets close by? " To get a feeling of the overall vibe of the location.
5. "How long is the contract? Are there any special clauses regarding finalising the contract due to special circumstances? " Because, in my experience, if the contract is for 10 months, even being robbed twice won't stop you from having legal problems if you don't want to stay all year.
6. "Could you provide me with contact information from previous tenants? " It is always great to know about the house first-hand.

And that's my post about my magnificent house and my advice to live in an English house. For sure, from the outside they are all the same and a little depressing from time to time. But encourage yourself to live in a house as the experience makes you mature so much more as a person. And that's what Erasmus is all about!

PS: I have added various photos of my neighbourhood, and what could be seen from my window and my room.

Photo gallery