Please sign in to post.

Family Flat in Covent Garden/West End area

We are a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 children) traveling to London for a week in late Fall.
Looking for a flat to rent, we have decided to stay in the West End/Covent Garden area. We chose to stay "in the heart of London" where we can simply walk from our flat to pubs, theatre, attractions, tube.

Looking on VRBO, we have narrowed it down to 3 places (links below). Any thoughts/recommendations you have for any of these?

Thanks again

Option 1: www.vrbo.com/760993
Option 2: www.vrbo.com/2256323ha
Option 3: www.vrbo.com/748584

Posted by
17562 posts

I am not an expert on apartment rentals, but we have rented in London and will return next spring. Here are my thoughts.

All three are lovely, modern apartments. Taste is a personal thing but I like the look of #3--- but would not rent it for reasons below.

I did not check the precise locations so cannot compare those. When renting our own apartment, I like to use Street View to see what the area looks like, so you should try that.

The first thing I look at when choosing an apartment is the reviews. If those do not measure up, I go no further.

The first has the best configuration for your family, with twin beds in the second bedroom. It is a new listing with only three reviews, all of which sound overly enthusiastic. Two were written the same day, and there have been none since. Caution.

The second has a good number of very believable reviews in English and German, so gets a green light if you like it otherwise.

The third is so new it has no reviews and no upcoming bookings. I never want to be the first to rent a place. That would be a red light for me. But if I really liked the place and wanted to give it a try anyway, I would start by corresponding with the owner to see if they could satisfy my concerns. I would also search for other listings of this same apartment. Try Googling the title for a start.

Posted by
33997 posts

A few comments on number 3, based on reading the link provided:

Extremely high cleaning damage deposit
Zero reviews
Just started as landlord
on Charing Cross Road - those lots of buses (s)he mentions are very noisy as are the firetrucks just around the corner on Shaftesbury Avenue, Leicester Square ((s)he says 2 minutes away can be very loud very late
Sleeps 5, seats 4, prices based on 3
TVs in the bedrooms only
70% of the time (s)he gets back within a few days but stays in contact, "I will keep in touch as much as I possibly can" how do those two things line up?

Sorry to sound negative..... just from what they post. I would want at least 10 honest sounding reviews.

Posted by
33997 posts

Number 2 is interesting, and you might see more on FeWo-Direkt if you speak German as the German guests seem to all come from there.

Only one 2015 review that I saw.

Number 1 bothers me for the same reason that it does Lola. How do you get 2 reviews of your three submitted on exactly the same day?

Posted by
4 posts

Thank you to those who have so far responded. Would love to receive more thoughts and opinions on the 3 options.

With respect to Option #3, I also recognized that there were no reviews. When I asked the host, they told me that they are mostly listed on AirBnB (https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/3565160- where they have several reviews, all glowingly positive), and have only recently added their listing to VRBO.
Somehow, my "fear" and scepticism of the validity of reviews on AirBnB make me nervous to believe them (although I could probably say the same thing about the reviews on VRBO, Amazon, etc...