[Symbiote]

"A few hundred pounds below market value" makes a huge, huge difference.

If your salary is around £30,000, you'll take home around £1,900 a month after tax and student loan payments. Spending 50% on rent is already huge, spending £300 more (66%) would be madness.

[mayniac]

Agreed: I've just looked around and it's closer to £100-200 cheaper per month, but it's hard to compare when you factor in anything more than just number of bedrooms and rough square footage. I did find out I'm paying about £100 a month more than the estimated payments on a 30 year mortgage which seems cheaper than most. I'm in the £40k range which makes it slightly less significant but not by too much.

Either way there's not a huge amount of choice in London. I had to find a room in a flatshare a few years ago and I struggled to find anything under £700 which was remotely reasonable (ie double bed, room for a desk and some floor space).