in June or July, with a friend of mine.

I have two main questions for the london folk of dis:

1) what are the good, yet reasonably cheap, areas to start looking for a house in? It's a bit overwhelming to just start looking for a 2 bedroom house/flat in london without narrowing down the search a bit first.

2) is it true that in london all the decent houses get snapped up immediately by a bunch of psychic house hunters?