London housing crisis: £480 a month for a bed, in a shed, in the lounge
09-03-2015
The rising cost of renting in the capital has led to some landlords being creative with their properties
A bed, in a shed, in the lounge.
the sofa in the communal living area.
Photograph: spareroom.co.uk
Gayle@damiengayle
When a flatshare advert calls for a “laid back, happy-go-lucky type that’s sociable [and] open minded”, it’s not necessarily a warning sign.
But Joe Peduzzi had no idea how far his tolerance would be stretched. The 22-year-old found that the double room in east London he had expected to view was in fact a mattress in a shed in the corner of a communal living room.
The room in Bethnal Green, advertised on SpareRoom.co.uk for £480-a-month plus bills, had been described as “the biggest in the house”, with the only indication of its downside being that it “comes with a sofa which means sharing it with the rest of us sometimes”.
“I was laughing to myself down the road back to the tube,” Peduzzi, from the Isle of Wight, was quoted by the Mirror as saying. But it is just the latest sign of how desperate the London housing market has become.
Pace of rent rises quickens as average UK rent reaches £937 a month
Rents were up 4.6% in July on the year before, figures show, with median rent for one-bedroom flat in London now more than £1,000 a month
It now costs an average £2,583 a month to take on a rented property in central London, according to Countrywide, the UK’s largest property services company, making the capital one of the most expensive cities in the world for renters.
This has led to an increasing number of flatshares with no living rooms, as the cost of shared space becomes too much for young tenants to cover. Circumstances where landlords apparently try to offer their tenants the best of both worlds have hitherto been rare, however.
Peduzzi had been seeking a room in the capital after finding a new job in the charity sector. He was shocked by the conditions he found. “I can’t believe people have the cheek to advertise that as a bedroom,” he was quoted as saying.
But he shouldn’t have been surprised. In Greater London, the rent for a one-bedroom flat has risen by an average of 22% over the past five years, according to recently published Valuation Office Agency data.
Buyers in England and Wales forced to spend up to 12 times their income as gap between earnings and house prices widens
That’s led to a proliferation of so-called beds in sheds, although admittedly most are not actually inside flats. Last month, Hackney council said it would inspect a studio flat which was up for rent at £250 a week, despite looking like a converted outbuilding.
Peduzzi turned down the offer of the bed in a shed in a lounge, and the advert has since been taken down. It is not clear if the current tenants of the flat have found a new housemate.
SpareRoom.co.uk said the room advertised breached their rules, which stipulate that flatmates shouldn’t have to walk through another’s bedroom to access communal space.
Matt Hutchinson, director of the house-share website, said: “We’re no strangers to quirky ads but this one puts a whole new spin on the phrase ‘beds in sheds’.
“There’s no clear reason given for putting a bed inside a shed, inside a bedroom, but it could be because the other housemates use the room as communal space. It’s a sign of the times that fewer house shares now have living rooms.”