FindaProperty.com lead us to this great map of nationalities living in London, drawn up by the flat-mates’ matcher EasyRoommate.com.

CLICK HERE to see which borough and area different nationalities prefer.

WINKWORTH West End
Address: 55 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1BS
Areas covered: Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, Fitzrovia, Marylebone, Mayfair, Soho
Jump to Winkworth West End website

We like the big glossy ads on the windows.

(c) tfl.co.uk

CLICK HERE to see all London letting agent offices in photos.

Like it or not but from now on we will be introducing the letting agents’ offices in photos! Just to give the renters who are looking online some touch of reality.

First in the line is: CHESTERTON Covent Garden
Address: 196 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JF
Jump to Chesterton’s homepage.

Rental flats and houses by Chesterton can apparently also be found on property portals Rightmove.co.uk and FindaProperty.com.

Office location on the map:

Click here to see our large map.

Should you have some photos of London estate agent offices lying around - we would be more than glad to post them along with your credits. Send your photos to: info at royalsofrent dot com.

We already know that Polish renters prefer Hammersmith and Ealing but where do the preferences of other nationalities lie? EasyRoommate.com would know, and so they say that:

It is noticeable that Australians prefer Earl’s Court and Shepherd’s Bush.

No wonder Earl Court’s nickname is Kangaroo Valley! Facebook’s Aussies in London group members say that Shepherd’s Bush is the new Earl’s Court. Acton NW10 and Willesden Green NW10 are also said to be full of people from down under. Areas around Walkabout bars also seem to attract more Australians.

But how are they as tenants? I actually had an Australian flatmate a few years back. That free-spirited young man in his mid-twenties could be described as very polite, considerate, and very respectful towards his flatmates. Always paid his rent on time, never had problems with cleanliness. We managed to live under the same roof for 6 months very peacefully. If I had to, I’d give Australian tenants a rating of 9/10.

Facebook Groups: Aussies in London, Australians in London
Read Australian Times, the newspaper for Australians living in London
An Aussie in London Stories from expat in London
Gumtree Classifieds ads site, which is popular among Australians

Video from YouTube: brettedgerton

The latest Halifax survey reveals most expensive residential streets in England and Wales based on property sale transactions made from 2004 to 2008.

The most expensive residential street in Britain is The Vale in Kensington and Chelsea, London SW3.

This was the least expensive rental I found available in The Vale, from Primelocation.com. 1-bed flat for £450 per week, offered by Chard.

The most expensive one was a 5-bedroom house. Offered by WA Ellis.

So we finally conquered Westfield this weekend.

Hoping to see a bit more of the surrounding area, we decided to take a bus there. Hopped on no. 49 in Kensington, which took us straight to Shepherd’s Bush tube station (central line), and Westfield, which is just next to it. The traffic was terrible on Sunday around 3pm but it gave us more time to explore the residential property on one of the roads that lead to the newest and biggest shopping centre.

The bus moved  v e r y  slowly on Holland Road W14, allowing us to take some pictures. Most of the houses on this street looked as if they were abandoned. We didn’t see more than maybe 2 people on the street.

The positive side to living on this street would be it’s proximity to shopping facilities, and the short 5-10 minute walk to the tube station. Bus station in front of your house, and the traffic jams in such narrow street could be very disturbing though.

Beautiful period houses in bad condition.

Will Westfield’s completion help renovate Holland Road?

Globrix found us some 35 rental property offers at Holland Road W14:
1-beds from £290 per week
2-beds from £375 per week
3-beds from £550 per week

Looking at Westfield from in front of the tube station.

Lounge area. People sipping on champagne in the middle of the day.

The Village (designer shops) area was created by leading US architects Michael Gabellini and Kimberly Sheppard.

Glass roof.

HOBBs store.

Touchscreen guide of the mall.

Would be interesting to see what Holland Road looks like in 2 years time.

One way to find out about the new rentals that come to the market, is to subscribe to RSS feeds. This means that you can order the offers to a special reader software, which you can then check for updates whenever you like.

Quite a few London letting agents have started to provide feeds of the flats and houses they offer on their website. We recommend this option to those of you who don’t like receiving offers by E-mail. I must say that of those 5-6 rental update lists that are sent to me during the day - I rarely look at them before deleting.

Using Google Reader suits me personally much better - it’s so much more comfortable than the HTML letter in my Outlook inbox. The only downside with RSS is that you can usually filter the offers by areas only, not by the number of rooms or by any other specification. So using the reader can be a bit time consuming, be warned. But it is ideal if you are unsure about what you want to rent. Some sites, like Primelocation.com, do allow you to refine the feed.

Here is a screen capture of estate agent Foxtons‘ listing in my reader:

If you want to subscribe to RSS feeds from Foxtons - just pick an area, and then look for this sign on the right side of the listings’ page. Click on it to subscribe.

Here is our small collection of RSS feeds for London rentals. Click on them to subscribe:

Belgravia properties for rent by Foxtons
Camden properties for rent by Foxtons
Clerkenwell properties for rent by Winkworth
Crouch End properties for rent by Winkworth
Hampstead AND surrounding areas properties for rent by Foxtons
Islington properties for rent by Winkworth
Kensington properties for rent by Winkworth
Knightsbridge & Chelsea properties for rent by Winkworth
London latest properties for rent by Knight Frank
Notting Hill properties for rent by Winkworth
Paddington and Bayswater properties for rent by Winkworth
Pimlico & Westminster properties for rent by Winkworth
Shoreditch properties for rent by Winkworth
South Kensington properties for rent by Winkworth
St James Park properties for rent in Primelocation.com
St John’s Wood properties for rent by Winkworth
West End W1, WC1, WC2 properties for rent by Winkworth
Willesden Green properties for rent by Winkworth

Which way do you prefer to get listing updates? Please vote in the POLL section on the right hand side of the page!

“Can you recommend areas that are equally nice but not as expensive as Chelsea or Mayfair?” asks a British renter, who is new to London.

What would you recommend? We will have to list some options here.

For comparison - here is what the average monthly rents are in these areas that are too expensive. According to FindaProperty.com area info:

London SW3 - Chelsea, Knightsbridge
London W1 - Mayfair, Soho, Fitzrovia, Marylebone