Finding a good and affordable space to rent in London is arguably the most stressful part of living in our beloved capital.
With a population of nearly 10 million, the only other UK city that is anywhere close to London’s size is Manchester, and even then its population is not even a third of London’s.
But with prices increasingly tough for many young renters to afford, an increasing number of people are turning to social media in an effort to find somewhere decent to call home, with decent people to live with.
That’s exactly what Oliver Rhys Henderson seeks to provide with his Instagram account, friends0ffriendz.
He aims to give people a safe and more personal way to communicate and find flatmates who gel: “This isn’t just about people finding a flat or a renter, it’s about people finding flatmates who have similar interests and who can actually be a friend,” Oliver said.
This principle was his reason for choosing a cupid as his logo – because his platform is about giving people the opportunity to build relationships with each other, instead of a purely transactional one for that month’s rent.
He said: “Our intention here is to match people that are suitable to live together, rather than have people in a situation of choosing places out of desperation.”
Oliver was also keen to highlight that by using Instagram as a platform, people can more easily check someone’s account to see if they are someone that they would like to live with, or even if they have mutual friends and/or followers, making an already daunting process feel safer and more manageable.
This is also reflected in the name choice, as it underlines the more personal level of communication and opportunity that users can have, as well as it being a convenient and coincidental marketing tactic.
Oliver happily observed how common the phrase “friends of friends” is with regard to rentals, and remarked that people have specifically mentioned his Instagram account on hearing the phrase.
But, the name also gives away how the idea for friends0ffriendz first came into being – through Oliver genuinely helping friends, or friends of friends, find like-minded people to live with in London by sharing spare rooms and people’s Instagram handles on his own profile.
People send photos and details – the costs, the general location, who the housemates would be – of a rent in London to the friends0ffriendz account, where it is then posted to the 40,000+ followers with the sharer’s account tagged so people can message them directly.
You can also message friends0ffriendz to say you are looking for a room, explaining a little bit about yourself, your budget, and your ideal location, and Oliver will post your message onto the account’s story with the hopes of someone getting in contact with you to say they have a room to sublet.
Rent prices in the UK have risen by 6.2% in the 12 months to January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS also stipulates that this rate is the joint-highest annual percentage change since January 2016, when it began collecting the data for the Index of Private Housing Rental Prices.
According to Zoopla, the average rent in London is £2,121 per month, after a 4.2% increase in the last year – although this growth is reportedly slowing down.
Oliver pointed out that young people who are not strictly financially stable, such as university students, artists, musicians and other creatives are usually the ones who struggle to cope with the cost of living, especially when landlords ask for bank statements or references.
Originally from Australia, the 24-year-old has first-hand experience of trying to find somewhere to live in the big smoke, as well as the concerns of finding good people to live with.
He began friends0ffriendz in July last year while he was working at The Pavilion Cafe, found in Tower Hamlets‘ Victoria Park.
Depending on the location of the rental, Oliver can have dozens of people expressing interest in setting up a viewing within minutes of posting.
The project has grown so much that he has turned it into a full-time job after quitting managing the east London café earlier this year, all while balancing his work with raising his young son, Augustus, who was born only one month before Oliver launched the account.
He has also recently gone international, with new accounts set up for New York, Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam, and now has his eyes set on adding Barcelona and Los Angeles to the list.
He also plans to develop his own app which would still include seeing fellow user’s mutual Instagram followers to stick with his platform’s key principle of keeping the renting process personal and about people making contact with each other, and is keen to get more people involved in managing the project once he does.
Feature image credit: Myriam Page
