Lowri Griffiths Documents Her Property Search, Three Estate Agent Lies, Two Mould Patches, and One Letting Fee That Should Be Illegal

I Tried to Find a Flat in North London This Week and I Have Questions

Right. So I’ve been living in my current place in Kentish Town for three years and the landlord has decided — with two months’ notice, on a Tuesday, in a voicemail — that he’d like to sell, and I would therefore need to vacate. This is, I’m told by three separate estate agents who all said it with the specific sympathetic expression of someone who has said this approximately forty times this week, “very normal in the current market.” Everything terrible is normal in the current market. The current market is basically a test of character masquerading as an economic condition.

What I Found

I spent four days looking at flats. I will tell you what I found. I found a studio in Tufnell Park described in the listing as “characterful” which means the kitchen is in the bedroom and the shower is in the kitchen. I found a one-bed in Finsbury Park described as “bright and airy” which was neither bright nor airy but did have a window, which I suppose is the direction of travel. I found a genuinely nice flat in Crouch End that was within my budget, scheduled a viewing, was told at 6:47 a.m. on the viewing morning by text message that it had been “let to another applicant,” and then watched it reappear on Rightmove three days later at £200 more per month, which is either a clerical error or something I am choosing not to understand fully because I need to get a flat.

The mould in property two was in the bathroom, which is expected, and in one corner of the bedroom ceiling, which is less expected, and when I mentioned it the estate agent said “it’s a bit of condensation, you’d want to keep the windows open” with a confidence that suggested he had never lived in a property with a mould corner and had possibly never breathed air before. I left a review on Google Maps. Three other reviewers had also mentioned the mould. The listing described the bedroom as “cosy.” These are not unrelated facts.

The Market, Explained Briefly

I have read enough economics to understand what is happening. Supply is constrained by planning restrictions, buy-to-let economics, and the specific incentive structure of owning property in a market where values only go up. Demand is sustained by a city that continues to attract people who want to live in it despite conditions that would deter a rational actor. I am, apparently, not a rational actor. I live here by choice and I am choosing to continue doing so, which requires finding a flat, which requires engaging with a market that has the energy of a speed dating event held in a burning building.

The actual finding of the flat — which I will, because I always do — is less interesting than the process, which is London teaching you, again, that it requires everything you have and will give you exactly what you need and nothing more comfortable than that. This is either the city’s charm or its hostility, and after three years in Kentish Town I have concluded it is both, simultaneously, and that this is fine.

North London life at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine. Property market reality at MyLondon. Further at santaclaus.top and London Prat Bluesky. Also see Newsthump for the lighter side of London absurdity.

What I Actually Found

I have a viewing tomorrow for a one-bed in Archway. The listing describes it as ‘well-presented.’ In London estate agent vocabulary, ‘well-presented’ means recently photographed with a wide-angle lens and a diffusing filter and is silent on the question of what it looks like to actual human eyes at actual human scale. I have learned to mentally subtract approximately twenty percent from every room size implied by a listing photograph. I have learned that ‘convenient for transport links’ means within earshot of a major road. I have learned that ‘vibrant neighbourhood’ means the pub downstairs closes at 2 a.m. None of this knowledge has made me better at finding a flat. It has made me more accurate in my disappointment, which is a specific skill that London teaches over time whether you want it or not. I will report back on the Archway flat. I am trying to be optimistic about the Archway flat. The listing says it has a garden. In London, ‘garden’ means anything from a shared park to a pot on a windowsill, and I will not know which until tomorrow morning. This is fine. This is London. The window onto the tube track in my current flat has prepared me for most things.

London does this to you, eventually. You arrive thinking you will master it — that you will find the affordable flat, the manageable commute, the market that still serves the neighbourhood, the cycle lane that doesn’t nearly kill you, the landmark that hasn’t been sold to someone richer. And what you actually find, after enough time, is that London is not a place you master. It is a place you negotiate — constantly, on its terms, with your own resources, doing your best with what’s available and adjusting when it changes and laughing, when you can, at the gap between what you expected and what you got. I expected a city. I got this city. It is, despite everything and including everything, exactly what I came for. Though I am still looking for the flat.