New Double. Common Room. Coworking. Garden. CF24

Your own door, a lamp-lit common room downstairs with the rugby on, and the sensible choice. Room 3 is a brand new double in a professional house share just off Newport Road, CF24, £765 a month with everything in, ready now.

The shower room is a few steps down the hall, shared with only others, which is why it is £765 rather than the £895 of the ensuite rooms along the landing. Ten minutes' walk to Roath's cafés, twenty to town, and a street so quiet the kids play football in it. If a pay rise comes, you can move up to an ensuite without a fee.

THE HOME

This is Unit 4, the first-floor home of seven rooms in higgihaus @ Stacey Road, a brand new building of thirty-four rooms split into six self-contained homes, so that nobody ever feels the thirty-four.

Unit 4 has its own keyless front door, its own fully equipped kitchen and dining space, four ensuite rooms and three rooms that share a shower room, so at most seven of you share the kitchen and at most three share a bathroom. The building's front door is keyless too; the only key you carry is the one to your own room, which is also the only one you can lose.

AS WITH ALL HIGGIHAUS HOMES, THE MONTHLY RENT INCLUDES

1. All the furniture and fittings in your room, listed below, down to the pictures on the wall. Bed linen is yours to bring, or take the upgrade pack and walk straight into a made-up bed
2. Full use of the kitchen and dining space, your shared shower room, and the higgihub (see below)
3. All the bills: heating, hot water, electricity, water, council tax, and 1,000Mb broadband up and down, professionally installed so it is as quick in your room as it is at the router
4. The TV licence for the television in the common room (the one in your own room needs your own)
5. Keyless digital entry at the building's front door and at Unit 4's
6. A cleaner, weekly, for the kitchen, the shared shower room and the communal areas. Your own room is your own affair
7. Indoor parking for thirty-seven bikes, which is one each even when the couples rooms are full

THE ROOM

Room 3 is a double on the first floor, with the shower room a few steps down the hall rather than through a door in the corner. A double or small double bed with two drawers underneath and a pocket-sprung mattress, because the bed is the thing you will use most.

Two wall lights and two bedside tables made from reclaimed crates. A metal chest of drawers and an open hanging rail. A smart TV on the wall, two framed prints, roller blinds and a mirror. No desk or chair as standard (see below). Your room door has its own key.

The pictures are of our show room in Unit 6, a double of much the same size as Room 3 and kitted out the same way: bed, wall lights, crate bedside tables, metal chest, TV and mirror. Room 3 is on the first floor, so a flat ceiling, and has an open hanging rail where the show room has a wardrobe.

The show room is dressed with our optional upgrade pack: made-up bed, duvet and pillows, rug, cushions, desk and chair, £742 one-off, fitted before you arrive so you can turn up with a suitcase and a toothbrush. Without it you bring your own, which is what most hausmates do, because most people have a duvet and a desk they are fond of. Come and see Room 3 itself; that is what viewings are for.

THE BATHROOM

Rooms 1, 2 and 3 share one shower room between them, a few steps down the hall: shower, basin, toilet and a window, cleaned weekly by our cleaner, which ends the rota debate before it starts.

THE KITCHEN

Unit 4's kitchen is equipped for seven: hob, oven, a combination oven and microwave, fridge-freezer and dishwasher, with a numbered cupboard of your own; fridge space is sorted out between the seven of you. Crockery, pans and the kettle are already there; you bring the food and the opinions on how to cook it.

THE HIGGIHUB

Your room is for you. The higgihub is for the evenings and weekends when you would rather not be in it. Think of the common room you had at sixth form, with better furniture and nobody in charge: a big corner sofa and two leather wingback chairs around a 55-inch smart TV for a film or the rugby, a bay window, a bean bag, a breakfast bar with stools under a lit row of pop-art portraits where people sit and work with a coffee, and a nook of oil-drum chairs with crates of books and board games.

Out of the back door is a courtyard, then a good lawn, both quiet enough for a coffee, a sandwich or a friend on a dry day. Beyond them are the outbuildings: a co-working room with two long desks, proper office chairs and a picture window onto the lawn, so working from home does not have to mean working from your bed, and where you will get to know the people from the other five homes; the laundry, with one washer and one dryer for now, free while numbers are small, and six tap-to-pay machines on order; and, before Christmas, a small gym of the free-weights-and-a-bench kind rather than the rows-of-treadmills kind.

WHERE

60 to 66 Stacey Road, CF24 1DW, just off Newport Road. The road is closed to through traffic at the Newport Road end, which is why the football. Buses into the city centre stop on Newport Road, a couple of minutes' walk away, and the supermarkets are there too. On foot it is about ten minutes to Albany Road and fifteen to Wellfield Road, where Roath keeps its cafés; about twenty minutes to Queen Street station and the east end of the city centre; and about twenty-five to Cardiff University. Cardiff Central is a mile and a half, or one stop from Queen Street for the late and the lazy.

THE PRACTICAL BITS

• Rent: £765 a month for Room 3. Unit 4 also has two more doubles at £695 and £720 that share the bathroom with Room 3, and four ensuite rooms at £895, so ask if one of those suits you better
• Deposit: one month, protected in a government scheme. Or no deposit at all with a Capped Guarantee: a working UK adult who will stand behind you, capped at two months' rent, and they do not need to own a home. A sister who rents will do
• Holding deposit: one week's rent to hold the room while we reference you. It comes off what you pay on move-in, and if we say no, you get it back
• Fees: none. VKY Lettings, who answer your message and show you round, are paid by us, not by you
• Minimum term: six months, on a standard occupation contract
• Short stays: this room is also available for one to three months as a serviced room, bed made up, towels and a weekly room clean, at a higher monthly rate that varies with the season, booked through our Airbnb listing rather than on a contract. Say how long you need when you message and we will point you to it
• Affordability guide: two and a half to three times the annual rent, so from about £23,000. Close but under? Talk to us; we would rather meet you than file you
• Available now. Viewings take in the show room and Room 3 itself, so you see what you are getting as well as what it could look like
• If your income rises and an ensuite comes free, in this home or another, you can move up to it with no fee, and your guarantee moves with you

WHO IT IS FOR

A professional house share, for people with a job in Cardiff and a life outside it. This room is single occupancy; couples, there are three rooms for two elsewhere in the building, so ask. No pets, and no smoking indoors.

higgihaus has run shared homes in Swansea for seven years, fifty rooms today, and we manage this building ourselves: referencing, your contract and everything after you move in is with us, not with a call centre. Message with your move-in date and what you do for work, and VKY will come back within the working day with viewing times.