This is a follow up to my initial thoughts on the rental properties by Get Living London at East Village E20, approximately 18 months after moving back to the UK and settling down here.

Get Living London are simply the best landlords in London. Period. If you have to rent and live in London, ideally it should be from them. They are now Private Landlord of the Year for two years in a row and it not hard to see why.

After my first year’s tenancy, I started the process to extend it by another two years. There were no fees whatsoever and the rent was only hiked by RPI – in my case about 20 quid. There is still only a tenant break clause, not a landlord break clause.

Living here for a while has meant I have had to interact with the management office on numerous occasions – lost keys, things that needed fixing, meter readings etc. On every occasion the response has been prompt, often on the same day, and completely professional. This is because they are professionals – not amateur Buy to Let “investors” farming you for their pension. The management office is also just down the street and open extended hours if you need anything.

For young people, the rental sticker price of the apartments might be a bit of a shock. They are premium priced, but remember there are no fees, which last time I calculated to work out at about 60 pounds a month if you went through Foxtons. For young professionals they offer the ability to split the rent for flat sharing completely with separate direct debits. This is a vast contrast from the student days of renting when one “lucky” tenant had to round up everyone else’s contributions and pay every month.

A special shoutout goes to Hyperoptic, the Fibre To The Premises broadband provider. Get Living London residents can get 20MBit free, with special rates for the 100MBit and 1Gbit packages. This is still the finest consumer internet connection I have ever used in the entire world. Frankly, it will now be hard to live in a non-Hyperoptic area of the UK.

Warning! Do not get conned into paying for Sky, TalkTalk, BT or other ADSL/VDSL based internet providers (even if its “free with Sky TV”). You are effectively being missold when you have an Ethernet jack in the cupboard with real internet that just needs turning on. You also do not need to pay for “line rental”.

Bills vary through the year. The heating and hot water bill for our two bed apartment ranges from 40-80 pounds a month, depending on usage. Bearing in mind we tend to run a full bath every day, this is quite reasonable. There are no gas bills since there is no gas. Electricity can be had from your choice of provider – mine is around 30 a month from GB Energy Supply who have charges that are the closest to the wholesale rate that you can find on the market.

Stratford International, the local DLR station 1 minute from our flat, has now become Zone 2 – this means commuting into London is even cheaper. And still certainly much better than paying over 400 quid a month to commute from Sussex into London on Britain’s most delayed train service (and people say renting is throwing money away, how about three hours of your life a day?).

If living next to the Westfield Stratford mall isn’t enough, shops have started to open in East Village itself. There is now an amazing Fish and Chip shop, Ice Cream parlour, two bars/pubs, coffee shops, a pizza place, dry cleaning and other awesome independent stores. The Fish and Chips from Fish House are out of this world.

It is worth mentioning the construction work that has started in the village. Two large towers are currently being built on an area of the green space in the center. Despite the disruption and a bit of an eyesore while the towers are going up, this is a good thing for London. London needs more quality homes from reputable, professional landlords and not just tower blocks designed to park Chinese money, which is the case for the majority of new builds going up in the city (marketed off plan for a week in Hong Kong before the locals can get a look in).

So all in all, still a great place to live and remains highly recommended. Drop me an email if you have any questions about E20 or Get Living London.