Rip-off rents are that bad

Having spent four years living away for large parts of the year at a time, the home comforts were enjoyable and plentiful. The fridge was always full, the 'maid' (read mother) available to do washing and cleaning etc. However, it was not long after that I started yearning for the freedom of my student days once more. Not for the nightclubs, nor for the societies, certainly not for the hours spent revising in the library, but for a place I could call my own. A place where I could once again have my independence.

Naturally, this meant doing some research.

And, also naturally, this research ended my search for a home of my own.

I can only assume that those agents quoted in your article are in fact residents of Guernsey County, Ohio, or perhaps Guernsey in Wyoming and were wrongly contacted for interview?

I can see no other reason for their denial of the unwanted title of 'priciest place to house or flat share'.

A quick search on websites shows that only one of these has anything available for under the £731 pcm average rent in 2014 that their representatives dispute. They have one available at £685 pcm – a studio flat, which upon closer inspection is smaller in every way than the student room I occupied in my final year at university in Manchester.

I would imagine I do not need to elaborate on the standard of housing generally available to students.

Further to this, upon learning of my efforts to find a home, my father also began a search in the hope that he perhaps would be able to find a property suitable as an investment. One where I could live and another room (or flat in a purchased house) could be rented out to help repay the mortgage I would require.

This led to a trip to a house in Town (local market), which contained three individual flats and is described by the agent as somewhere in need of upgrading and modernising.

One of the flats is a studio flat, which in my father's words was 'in fairly grim condition'.

He was told by the agent that in current conditions – i.e. before any much-needed remedial work – that the studio flat alone would command a rent of at least £700 pcm.

Need I say more?

I am sure I am not the only Guernsey resident to hold the above opinions. Indeed I know of family friends, school friends and many others who have all faced this issue.

I am also sure that many of them would admit that they would pay more when transport etc. is taken into account in central London, which no doubt some agents would argue is a factor and therefore levels the playing field. However, if this is a factor, then they might also take into account the fact that virtually all of my friends working in London earn thousands of pounds more than me a year.

I am probably in a position where I could perhaps afford rents more than others.

I can therefore only commend the agents quoted in your article on their apparent sense of humour and hope that hearing examples of the reality people on the island are facing may at some point lead to them accepting the facts about high rents.

DAVID PETERS,

La Ruette de la Generotte,

Castel.