Butler’s Head Livers Out Rep, Jenny Roberts, explores Durham’s predatory student housing market and explains why you should chill.
As the Head Liver Out Rep, you might expect that I had my life together when it came to housing in my first year. Hate to break it to you, but I did not. I wasn’t sure who to live with, I didn’t know where to live in Durham, and I didn’t know how you would then sign for a place, or when. Obviously, I was fine in the end, but it wasn’t fun getting there.
There were many reasons for my stress. Firstly, people around me rushed into housing. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame anyone for sorting their housing out quickly – they were the people I envied in first year. But others rushing into it made me feel like I had been left behind, as I was simply not ready to sign a house with people after three or four weeks of knowing them, even though people I could have signed with turned out to be some of my closest friends later.
I can’t be alone in thinking that Durham is weird for how early we search. My friends at other universities did not house hunt until after I had signed my house “late”, whereas the boards outside the estate agents in Durham advertised that houses were running out from November onwards. They’re doing the same currently. The line of estate agents on Elvet has gradually accumulated billboards declaring that they have limited spaces remaining, giving you judgemental looks each time you walk past. People will gradually begin to tell you, when you tell them ‘I haven’t sorted out my housing’, that ‘oh, you really should sort it. They’re running out fast!’ Sorry, but unless they’re talking about the houses five minutes away from the Library or Elvet Riverside, which are going, they are wrong (it’s not their fault though).
Let’s put Durham into context, shall we? There are approximately 17,000 students here, many of whom are final years not looking at housing, others who are going on year abroads, others who are uncertain of what to do, and then there’s the people who sort their housing early. People who go on to study Masters often won’t know or decide this until very late on, and prospective 1styear students who decide to live out of college will find their housing in the summer before university. If all these people aren’t searching, or find things this late on, why are we all so convinced that failing to find our house by the end of first term dooms us to solitary life in a hovel uglier than the SU (side note: your house can never be uglier than the SU)? Why do we all think there’s a housing crisis here, when there is no housing crisis in Durham except for that which the estate agents have created?
You may wonder – why would the estate agents say houses are running out when they’re not? Well, consider that, when you sign your house, you hand the estate agents a hefty deposit of around £400, which they will hold on to until the end of your tenancy in July 2019. The sooner you sign, the more interest they gain. Plus, the more stressed you are, the more likely you are to sign on a house that you don’t really want but will sign just to avoid the chance of getting sidled with a worse one.
I know I’ve just made this seem like the worst situation in the world, but now I’m going to highlight why you will be fine and why you shouldn’t let housing get you down this year.
More and more houses are being constructed in Durham, with the new Mount Oswald site and there are various blocks of student flats available across the year and being built, such as City Block in the Viaduct. There’s also houses in surrounding areas, just a small bus ride away, which you can get for around £30 a week if you’re savvy. I also know many people who signed houses in February and March, when houses were supposedly gone, and their houses aren’t even bad (one group even signed back onto the same house for next year). There will also be many people who drop out of their spaces, and Facebook groups like Overheard in Durham will become overpopulated with people advertising free spaces in their houses.
What if your worry isn’t that you won’t find a house, but is that you can’t find housemates? Again, you will be ok! I personally had this problem, having only secured one friend from my course in a similar situation, but we then discovered that another friend of ours had kept quiet about her own housing stresses and was available. We then sorted a lovely house together in second term. Don’t be afraid to ask people, and don’t assume that people dislike you or are sorted because they didn’t ask you. They probably also assumed you were fine. Housing does mean that groups form while others are left out of the loop, but remember that if you’re left out, someone else will be too. Sometimes you have to suck it up and be that person who messages every friend they know like: ‘hey, you sorted your housing yet?’.
There’s also several schemes available if you don’t chance upon a housing buddy, such as Durham University’s Find a Housemate Scheme, and the new Butler Find a Housemate/Flatmate scheme (coming this year!). If you ever need someone to talk to or questions to ask, feel free to pop me or a Liver Out Rep a message. We’ve all been through the housing process before and know the stress, so we’re all more than happy to help you!
Email: Jennifer.m.roberts@durham.ac.ukor Jenny Roberts on Facebook
Butler Housing: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ButlerHousing/
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