Relocation stays in Birmingham
Relocation accommodation in Birmingham
Somewhere proper to live in Birmingham while you work out where you actually want to live. Furnished, bills included, no twelve month tenancy signed in a city you do not know yet.
Or call reservations on 0333 880 7213
The short answer
Somewhere to land in Birmingham before you commit to anywhere.
Relocation accommodation is a furnished whole property taken for a month or several while you find a permanent home. It exists because the alternative is signing a twelve month tenancy on a street you have never seen, from a photograph, before the job has even started. We let whole apartments and houses in Birmingham on that basis: everything furnished, every bill included, no referencing and no deposit scheme, and you extend or leave when you are ready. Our Birmingham properties are in the Jewellery Quarter, walking distance from the centre.
Called a few different things
This gets called relocation accommodation, relocation housing, temporary accommodation, interim accommodation, a serviced apartment, a short term let, corporate relocation housing, or simply somewhere to stay while you look. Employers relocating somebody usually call it relocation accommodation and pay for a fixed number of weeks.
The mistake worth avoiding
Signing for a year in a city you have been in for four days.
Everybody who has moved for work has a version of this story: the flat that looked fine online and turned out to be the wrong side of a dual carriageway, an hour from the office, on a twelve month agreement. A month or two somewhere decent, while you actually walk the areas and do the commute in the rain, costs less than the mistake does. It suits you if:
Where you would be
Working out where you actually want to live in Birmingham.
The south west corridor
Edgbaston, Harborne, Selly Oak, Stirchley and Bournville run out along the Bristol Road, and the Cross City Line is the most useful railway in the city. Harborne has a proper high street and no station of its own. Selly Oak is student territory in term time and quiet outside it. Bournville is unusually green and unusually quiet, which suits some people and bores others.
Moseley, Kings Heath and east
South of the centre, Moseley and Kings Heath are the independent shops and restaurants end of Birmingham, busier and younger than the suburbs further out, with the A435 as the spine they hang off. Further east, Acocks Green, Hall Green and Yardley are cheaper and quieter, and their rail services run into Moor Street rather than New Street, which changes your walk at the other end.
North, and the further out options
Sutton Coldfield is further from the centre than newcomers expect, but it has Sutton Park on its doorstep and a direct line into New Street, so it works for families who are not in town daily. Erdington and Perry Barr are closer in and cheaper. Solihull is a separate borough and behaves like one, with its own centre and the airport close by.
What people get wrong from a map
Birmingham is physically large and its transport radiates from the centre, so the difficult journey is never the one into town. It is the sideways one between two suburbs. Places that look four miles apart can take an hour by bus. Before settling on an area, work out the exact trip you will make at eight in the morning, not the one the map implies.
Living in the centre itself
More people live in central Birmingham than used to, mostly in flats around the canals, the Jewellery Quarter and Eastside. It works for a single person or a couple who both work in town and want to walk to everything. It works much less well for families, since the schools, the parks and the space are all in the suburbs. The noise map is not uniform either, so one block can be calm and the next not.
The north and south split
The city divides in a way outsiders miss. The south and south west, through Edgbaston, Harborne, Moseley and out towards Solihull, hold most of the money and most of the demand, and prices follow. The north and east, places like Erdington, Kingstanding and Washwood Heath, are cheaper and far less talked about. Neither half is one thing, and the shorthand is usually wrong at street level.
View a street twice, differently
The useful trick in a city you do not know is to stand on the street at two separate hours: a weekday at half past eight, and a Friday at ten at night. Birmingham has roads that are pleasant on a Sunday and a solid queue on a Tuesday, and quiet corners a hundred metres from a strip that does not settle until two.
Most people here still drive
There is one tram line and a useful but limited suburban rail network, so cars and buses carry the bulk of journeys. That shapes where people choose to live much more than it would in London. If you are arriving without a car and intend to stay that way, narrow the search to the rail corridors and the tram line early, because everywhere else is harder work than it looks.
Booking direct
The same property, without the platform's cut.
Our properties are on Airbnb and Booking.com as well, and you are welcome to book there. Booking direct also avoids the guest service fee the big platforms add on top, which on a longer Birmingham stay is not a small number. Booking with us direct also means you are talking to the people who actually run the property rather than a message thread inside an app, which matters when you need an early check-in or an extra week.
Message reservations rather than booking night by night. A month or more is priced differently from a run of nights, and if your employer is paying we will invoice them directly with a purchase order reference.
In every property
What is actually there when you arrive.
Birmingham questions
What people ask about staying in Birmingham.
Which part of Birmingham should I be in?
Most of what you would need day to day sits in the Jewellery Quarter, the city core, Digbeth and Edgbaston. Tell us where you need to be each morning rather than which postcode you fancy, and we will be honest about what is close to it and what only looks close.
Can I park in Birmingham?
The Clean Air Zone covers the city centre inside the A4540 ring road and charges older vehicles daily, which is a real cost if you are driving in every day. Check your vehicle before you book. Outside the zone it is ordinary city parking, tight in the residential streets and paid in the centre.
How easy is it to get around Birmingham without a car?
New Street puts London inside an hour and twenty, the NEC and the airport are ten minutes on the train, and the tram runs through the centre.
What is there to do in Birmingham on a day off?
The canals, the Jewellery Quarter, Digbeth and the Bullring are all inside a walk of the core, and the Lickey Hills, Cannock Chase and Stratford are inside an hour. Birmingham rewards a bit of exploring on a long stay, because almost none of the good parts are the parts on a postcard.
Questions we get asked
What people moving here ask us.
Can my employer be invoiced?
Yes, and it is common with a relocation package. We invoice the company for the agreed number of weeks with a purchase order reference, and you extend privately after that if you need longer.
How long do people usually stay?
Six to twelve weeks is the common shape: long enough to find somewhere permanent, do the referencing and wait out a notice period. The rate improves past the first month, so tell us your best guess and we will price it for that rather than for a fortnight.
Is there a tenancy or a credit check?
No. This is a booking, not a tenancy, so there is no referencing, no guarantor and no protected deposit. That is particularly useful if you have just moved country and have no UK credit history yet, which is the thing that stops most relocations dead.
Can the family come once I have found somewhere?
Yes, and it is worth telling us at the start. Whether you need two bedrooms from week one or from week five changes which property makes sense, and moving you twice helps nobody.
Check availability
Tell us when you land.
Message reservations with your start date, how many of you there are and roughly where you will be working, and we will tell you what makes sense.
Reservations, seven days a week, on 0333 880 7213