Hi,

I'll be studying a postgraduate finance programme (1 year) at NTU from September 2017. I'm not from the UK and wonder how easy it is to find a descent accomodation in Nottingham if I come a week before the programme starts and begin to look for an accomodation and view different options. I'm just afraid of booking something I've not viewed, even if there are beutiful pictures available :). Is it cheaper to live in a student accomodation or rent a room in a private flat/house? I'd like to live fairly close to the University (unless I'm wrong about this, what do you think?) and ideally it shouldn't be more expensive than £ 500 including all bills.
My girlfriend is going to join me in January and work in Nottingham. Would it be better for me to rent something for one person I could cancel by the middle of January and then rent something for 2 people or something for 2 people right away, although it would be more expensive?
Is it common in Nottingham that an owner of a house rents a couple of spare bedrooms and lives in the house as well? It was like that when I studied in the US for 8 monthes and I really loved it since the landlord was awesome and we became real friends and he also helped me improve my English a lot. He also let my girlfriend, who I met there, stay overnight without any problems.
As I understand, I wouldn't really have enough time for student life since the programme is very intensive and has to be completed within just a year, otherwise one just gets unenrolled. So, I reckon it would be quite important for me to live close to a library as well as to a grocery shop. Which is the most important part for me is to ensure that nobody would disturb me with being loud and rude by drinking alcohol, bringing many friends. Ideally the contract should be cancelable within a short periode of time.

Thank you

I don't know about Nottingham, but in most places you will struggle to find accommodation that quickly and that close to the start of term.

I've known students at my university leaving it very late to find somewhere and having to stay in hostels for several months, sometimes in a different city, because they can't find proper accommodation.

I would advise going there a month or two before and finding somewhere if that's a possibility (that's what I did when I started my postdoc in a different city), or just look online eg at Rightmove or places the university recommends to find somewhere, or contacting the uni and seeing what they advise. Sometimes there is a departmental mailing list where they email out to see if people have spare rooms.

It's probably cheaper to rent a room somewhere, although it can be hard to find decent ones and obviously you get what you pay for... Nottingham is fairly cheap as far as I know, so your budget should be fine for a room - you might also get a very cheap 1 bed flat for that price. Sometimes landlords do rent out rooms in their houses, but this is fairly atypical.

Rental contracts are usually for at least 6 months, so you might struggle to get a contract for less than that, unless it's an informal arrangement with someone.

Yep, close to the uni is usually better.