Students will be the winners

Bushells has just let a two-bed flat in Acre Lane, Brixton, to three students for £180 a week (£60 per student), more than 10 per cent less than the landlord was asking for.

It's a similar story in Bow, where there's big demand for accommodation from students at Queen Mary College and the Royal London Hospital in Mile End Road.

"Normally, landlords have students over a barrel," says Gary Coultish, office manager at Winkworth's Bow office. "They didn't want students. But now I don't think students have ever been in such a strong position."

Bow has a good choice of three and four-bedroom ex-local authority flats and maisonettes on lowrise estates, which normally rent for about £340 a week - £85 a week each for four sharers.

But Coultish has one property on his books where the rent has been slashed to £288 a week after the property had stood empty for several months.

Three- and four-bedroom houses in New Cross, near Goldsmiths College, normally let for around £300 a week. But there's such a glut of property that landlords are happy with £250. Four sharers would pay just £62.50 each.

"There are too many buy-to-let properties around," says Gary Franklin of Winkworth's New Cross Gate office. "Landlords are having to drop rents by £50 or £100 a week, and we're telling them they have to negotiate."

Students have just moved into a four/five-bedroom house just off New Cross Road, paying £250 a week for a property which would normally cost £300.

Landlords, who bought properties hoping for good profits from Useful websites rents, are often reluctant to consider dropping prices, but change their tune when their properties have been empty for months.

?We have double the usual number of rental properties on our books,? says Vanessa Bernard. She is area manager at Townends and is in charge of a chunk of south London around Croydon, Mitcham, Morden and Streatham.

?We have to educate landlords. We tell them that if they don?t charge reasonable prices people will go elsewhere.? Four-bedroom houses in central Croydon that used to rent for £275 a week now go for £230, less than £60 per person for four.

Landlords are also open to offers of a lower rent in return for money upfront if you can afford it, says Kate Nicholls of Winkworth?s Kentish Town office, which rents to students at the University of North London and University College London. One student who moved into a three-bedroom flat in Highgate with two employed friends got his rent reduced from £350 a week to £300 by paying six months? money in advance.

Keying the words ?student accommodation? into an internet search engine will bring up a number of websites specialising in student rentals. One of the most useful for Londoners is www.accommodationforstudents.com, which has properties from 1,300 landlords and letting agents on its list. Of these, about 20 per cent are in London.

Click on London and you?ll get a choice of areas with lists of addresses and costs of properties to rent. To get full details you must register (for free) and you can call up information on numbers of rooms, inside and outside facilities, gardens and parking.

If you find something you like, you can e-mail the landlord. The site was launched in January and 10,000 students are registered.