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Would anyone like to test drive my scavenger hunt around Aldgate?
Aldgate's a decent shout for this, the bit round Petticoat Lane and the old Truman Brewery gives you proper landmarks to work with. I'd say watch the underpass by Braham Street though, it's easy to miss the entrance and people might just skip that clue entirely. Weekends are quieter so you'll get cleaner feedback than a weekday lunch rush.
heads up on the timing side, a lot of the alleyways round there funnel you toward the station exits and people instinctively bail once they see the barriers. make sure your last clue isn't anywhere near the Aldgate East underpass or you'll get half your testers just going home. saturday arvo prob best, sunday the city's basically dead so you won't catch where ppl actually get confused.
If you're routing people through the lanes off Middlesex Street, keep an eye on the market stall setup on Sunday mornings. Some of those alleys get packed with traders from about 8am and a clue marker can end up buried behind a table. Saturday afternoon is probably your sweet spot, quieter but still enough footfall to spot where people naturally drift off course.
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What are some innovative ways to anonymously compare rental prices in a city?
SpareRoom's "rooms wanted" ads are underrated for this. people post what they're currently paying alongside what they want next, so you can scrape a rough sense of going rates by postcode without anyone knowing you looked. it skews young and flatshare heavy tho, so not much use if you're after 2-beds in zone 2.
Another one is just the depozit or tenancy deposit scheme data. not public-facing, but your council's housing officer can tell you median rents from deposit registrations if you email them under FOI. takes weeks, but its proper anon and nobody clocks u.
Rightmove and Zoopla only show asking rents, which are often 10 to 15 percent above what a place actually goes for, so they're a poor benchmark. The trick I've used is the ONS Price Index of Private Rents, which breaks things down to borough level and is genuinely anonymous since it's aggregate data, no listing or account needed. For something more granular, the London Renters Union runs a rent reporting tool where you submit what you're paying with your postcode and it maps it against others nearby, though the coverage is patchy outside the inner boroughs.
the openrent "rent check" thing is decent for zones 3-4 where the unions tool barely reaches. also worth checking the london.gov.uk planning portal for new build applications, they list "affordable" and market rent figures per unit in the viability assessments, which is basically the developer telling the council what they expect to charge. bit of a faff to dig through but its public, anonymous & nobody knows ur looking