One of the most difficult aspects of living in London is the accommodation. If you're not prepared to spend at least £400.000 buying a property, you better look for the right rental.
London is the second most expensive city in the world, just losing for Moscow. Believe me, finding a flat or a room in London is a tough job and expensive. With what I pay here for a single room, without living room and a tiny kitchen I could have a good three bedrooms flat in Brazil.
London is divided by zones. If you get a tube map, you're going to see that there're 6 zones. The first is the area for all top attractions. Town centres, museums, Thames, best parks, and usually where the best companies are settled. To live in zone one having a flat for yourself, one bedroom, you're going to pay an estimate price of £300 a week. To live in Covent Garden, one of the most charming areas of London, you're going to spend an average of £1400 per month. If these prices are too much for your budget, you can live in London for cheaper, sharing a flat with someone else, a bunch of people from all over the world, or choosing for zones 2, 3, 4… It gets cheaper as far as you're from the centre.
I moved 9 times in 2 years here. I lived with all kind of nationalities, people from Australia, Malaysia, Spain, Brazil, Turkey, Vietnam, Philippines, Portugal, Italy, Africa, France, Lithuania, Switzerland. I lived in Fitzrovia, paying £240 per month and living with 20 people, and in zone 2, having my own room and living with another 2 girls for £500 per month. The options are infinite, and it all depends on the kind of life you want to have.
Here are some tips you're going to need when deciding where.
Live in the reality that your money can pay
Realize! You're not going to find a miracle flat, central location, brand new with huge spaces for cheap. The furniture usually is not very new, carpets are all over the place, the colour of the wall is probably not your favorite, flats here are not as bright as in a beach. If it's a house, the garden is probably very small, and you can easily see your neighbor's garden (it means: no privacy!). You're going to find carpet in kitchens, bathrooms without window, bedrooms with very small ones, and the storage area is usually shared with more people than it can support.
Where to look
If you are looking on the Internet you can easily find web sites that provide lists of houses for rental. One of the most famous in London is called gumtree.com. It can be very easy to find a room there, there're all kinds of places and prices. But, be careful, people that call them agents and advertise in websites usually put prices over the one that an agency or the landlord would ask for. Search is the word. If you think a room is too expensive for the location or the picture you're seeing, don't even go to visit, you might be paying way too much for what could cost even half of the price. I know agents that charge £2200 for a flat that the landlord asks only £800 per month. I would preferably go directly into a proper agency, talk face to face with the agent, look at the pictures and have faith that most of my money is going to the landlord.
On the other hand, if you're not looking for a flat, but only a room, you don't have too many options. You might have only the websites or some acquaintance (or friend) to give you a hand. When you're going to visit a flat, speak with the people at the house about what they do to be sure you want to live with them. Speak with the person that's showing you the room about terms of payment and minimum stay. It's very important to know what's the person's relation with the flat, if he/she is the owner, the agent from an agency or someone that's trying to make money by renting for someone else. Never give deposit or rent without proper documentation proving your payment. Ask as many questions as possible, don't leave with doubt. If you still think that there's something wrong with the transaction, ask copies of ID of the person you're giving money to.
Don't rent unless you visit it. Don't go for pictures. The rooms usually look bigger than they really are. If there's no possibility of coming to London to see the room before you're moving, the best solution is stay in a hotel or a hostel for some days. It's not difficult to find a hostel in London, most of them are in touristic areas. You might be sharing the room, but don't worry about your bags, you're going to find lockers all over the place.
