Question about furnished/unfurnished flats

[mintycakes]

I had a question about furniture that's slightly different than what I've read here, so I wanted to toss this up as my first post.

I am moving to London in September, where I will be a local employee for a company over there. Luckily, my relocation package includes "full reimbursement for transportation of personal items, including furniture." Seeing how they'll pay for door-to-door transit, I'm considering taking my furniture with me.

There's not a ton of furniture, it's all the basics, so I'm certain it can all fit in a small flat. The furniture also isn't of heirloom quality (read: IKEA), so I could pawn it off here, but if my company will pay for the move, I figure, why not bring it?

I realize that many (most?) London flats come furnished, so here are my questions:

1. Are furnished flat rentals generally more expensive than unfurnished ones? By taking my furniture with me, will I end up saving money in the long run?

2. Is it going to be much harder to find an unfurnished place? Am I limiting my choices by ruling out furnished flats?

3. Fully reimbursed moving expenses aside, am I insane to ship pressed particle board over to the UK?

Thanks in advance!

[jlms]

No idea about what is more expensive, I have never rented a flat in the UK, so I can't tell.

But something that always takes newcomers by surprise is how small flats, and housing in general, can be in London and the UK in general (there are no laws about minimum room sizes, like in Germany lets say).

I count several friends and acquaintances that had to put in storage half their belongings because they could simply not fit them on their new home.

I frankly would not bother bringing run of the mill furniture, you can get it on IKEA here, or buy it second hand on Ebay. Maybe you could consider buying something really nice and then bring it here to sell for a profit ;-)

[Punktlich2]

Originally Posted by mintycakes

I had a question about furniture that's slightly different than what I've read here, so I wanted to toss this up as my first post.

I am moving to London in September, where I will be a local employee for a company over there. Luckily, my relocation package includes "full reimbursement for transportation of personal items, including furniture." Seeing how they'll pay for door-to-door transit, I'm considering taking my furniture with me.

There's not a ton of furniture, it's all the basics, so I'm certain it can all fit in a small flat. The furniture also isn't of heirloom quality (read: IKEA), so I could pawn it off here, but if my company will pay for the move, I figure, why not bring it?

I realize that many (most?) London flats come furnished, so here are my questions:

1. Are furnished flat rentals generally more expensive than unfurnished ones? By taking my furniture with me, will I end up saving money in the long run?

2. Is it going to be much harder to find an unfurnished place? Am I limiting my choices by ruling out furnished flats?

3. Fully reimbursed moving expenses aside, am I insane to ship pressed particle board over to the UK?

Thanks in advance!

1. Furnished flats are more expensive than unfurnished ones, but not necessarily much more expensive. (For one thing, the landlord gets a 10% furnishing allowance deduction from the rent -- sort of like depreciation in US tax law -- but only if the flat is fully furnished. So he makes more money on a furnished flat even while charging only slightly more rent.

2. Check Gumtree.com: UK's No. 1 in classifieds - jobs, property, cars and more, Craigslist and other rental sites to compare prices. Be careful: there are plenty of fakes and frauds about.

3. I wouldn't bring junk furniture; but if you have nothing else to do with it you can bring it and sell what you don't need here.

4. It isn't so much that you are ruling out places by not renting furnished; I think rather you sort of oblige yourself to a longer lease. Normally you would sign an "assured shorthold tenancy" with a minimum six-month duration. It would be a bit of a nuisance to be schlepping furniture after only six months though.