My son is going to Sheffield Uni' and needs to rent a house in Sheffield hopefully near the Uni'. He has found a house in Lloyds Road in Firvale, but the rent is only £45 a week is there something dodgy about this area or am I being too suspicious.
Any help appreciated.
taurus

Firvale is not a popular student area, the area is not really very close or convenient for Sheffield University and does not really have a student population.

You need to be looking at Crookes, Broomhill or Ecclesall.

Please check www.upmystreet.com

If you email me I shall express a personal view rather than a public one.

Paul.

I have no idea about firvale itself, but its not close to the Uni by a long way, and as far as I know there aren't any students in that area. He would be a lot better looking at Broomhill, Crookes, or Crookesmoor, and if he wants cheaper accomodation, Walkley, or Hunter's bar. Often overlooked due to the fact that it used to be a red light district is Broomhall. All of these are student areas and the main center is Brromhill. £45/per week is usual for most places per personin the house. In Broomhill you should expect to pay £50 per week per person. I have used Tapton Estates (http://www.taptonestates.co.uk/) for the last three years and although they strictly hold you to their no posters rule and other rules, they also supply workmen quickly for the essentials (heating plumbing etc) Many of my frineds have found their landlords to be reasonably fair. UCAS is the name of one of the Agencies which I think may have closed down now. I would not be surprised as it recieved a lot of bad press from our Union paper, the Steel Press. I wouldn't advise going to them.

Most people who begin at uni start at uni accomodation, there are self catered flats if he doesn't want to live the catered hall lifestyle.

I hope that helps.

Are they the same as UKAS? 0114 268 4181

Just below Broomhill? - though they are still trading.

maybe yeah.... The Steel Press reported them as being completely unresponsive to issues of damp, rat infestations and so on.

tbh - I'd trust your reply and actual experiences over my visual experience ;)

Stick to accommodation in the following postcodes: S11, S10, S2, S8 & S7.
Try this link: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Student+Accommodation%2Bsheffield&spell=1
Good Luck

Fir Vale's near the Northern General Hospital... it's not fantastic, it's by no means the worst part of the city. Broomhill, crookes, round there are better areas. There's also out towards Heeley way (round Queens Road), and Nether Edge which have a good few student houses.

You could also try the universitys accommodation service. As well as university own properties they have a list of privately rented properties.

See http://www.shef.ac.uk/housing/

Crookes is great, a good mix of locals, students, Uni staff (me) and Hospital staff. It's still like a village, with our own family butcher, wet fish shop, a great co-op etc, and 20mins walk to University of Sheffield

rather him than me lets say! yeah crookes, ecclessall, broomhill all good areas and close.

I think the UKAS you mean has relocated to a site adjacent to the electrical shop on Crookes it seems to be the same people but now goes under the name ACOM. Work possibly doesnt get carried out on the property because maybe the tradesmen dont get paid after the last job they completed.

Originally posted by Spacehopper
8) Nah Den Ace.........



I wouldn't bother with Ecclesall, not after the recent murder anyway.

Is that Ecclesall or Ecclesall Road or are they both one and the same? ;-)

Originally posted by alchresearch
Is that Ecclesall or Ecclesall Road or are they both one and the same? ;-)

ROFL. Oh excellent!

From personal experience, I found Tapton Estates unprofessional and rude and would never consider using them again. There are lots of estate agents with student accomodation on Ecclesall Road itself.

You could actually try Burngreave Road. There are some 6 students houses here that I know of, but you can be assured there are alot more if you see the bus stop at 8:25am

Its handy if you are at Hallam (takes about 10 mins on the bus) but for Sheffield Uni, you are better sticking to the crookes, walkley, ecclesall road, hunters bar area where indeed he may encounter mugging, murders and prostitutes offering him reduced rate services. Hope he enjoys sheffield!

1Man&HisPimpstaBMW

Originally posted by richard
maybe yeah.... The Steel Press reported them as being completely unresponsive to issues of damp, rat infestations and so on.

I ought to point out that the stories weren't entirely true. The editor (Nick Sharpe) of the Steel Press was my housemate at uni (back when it cleaned up at the Guardian Student Media Awards in 2000.) They got into all sort of trouble about this story. Two students had said that when they went to the agency to make a complaint about work not being carried out a large dog was released on them. It turned out to be utterly untrue and the students had a grudge. My housemate almost got sued over it!

I have never used them though so can't really comment beyond saying this one story was untrue.

Originally posted by 1Man&hisBMW
You could actually try Burngreave Road. There are some 6 students houses here that I know of, but you can be assured there are alot more if you see the bus stop at 8:25am

Its handy if you are at Hallam (takes about 10 mins on the bus) but for Sheffield Uni, you are better sticking to the crookes, walkley, ecclesall road, hunters bar area where indeed he may encounter mugging, murders and prostitutes offering him reduced rate services. Hope he enjoys sheffield!

1Man&HisPimpstaBMW

Haven't had any of these things happen yet and been here 18 months! Did get a hifi nicked from deepest darkest s****iest S10 and have had my car vandalised and petrol stolen in broad daylight in crookesmoor.

On a more serious note, £45pw sounds more like the mortgage repayment for a house in fir vale than the rent for a room! You should be able to find something much closer uni for that eg in crookes, ecclesall road, s2 etc. although crookesmoor is getting very close to £70pw now. I am following 1Man&HisPimpstaBMW's route though, S3 seems to be the bargain of the century for property to buy and is actually not that much of a hike from the mappin street university site. I have been following this for a year or so now and I reckon its a pretty safe bet.

The university accomodation is good value for the first year- you only have to pay for term time so it costs around 70% what private rentals do and is in mostly in a VERY nice bit of town. A long walk though...

By living in Fir Vale, he will have to get two buses to Sheffield Uni... Because that's what I'm doing at the moment!

If he can afford it, get a house closer. But the price to rent a whole house in Fir Vale won't get you a room near the Uni!!

Property prices in S3 are going to go through the roof in the next 2 years - lots planned.