Before you actually choose and rent a house you will need to negotiate a more tricky problem - who to live with. Living out can be fun, and legendary house parties may become the rule, but before you bond into a cohesive house unit you need to choose people from that mixed bunch you made friends with this year. The problem is that choosing the wrong people to live with can make your year out an unpleasant experience. At close quarters, even small faults or habits which were amusing last year can easily become exaggerated and extremely annoying. So, when deciding on whom to bestow the mantle of housemate think about the following:

Do you want to live with people from your college?
Do you want to live in a single-sex house?
Do you want to live with your girlfriend/boyfriend?
Are you prepared to live with smokers?
Are you prepared to live with vegetarians/meat-eaters?
Are you prepared to live with a 'couple'?
Are your prospective housemates' tidy or messy?
Can you live with someone who will label food like its going out of fashion?
Could you cope with their music tastes for a whole year?
Could they put up with you for a whole year?

Bear in mind that most tenancy agreements are jointly and severally liable, in other words you're all in it together. That makes it quite hard to move out if life then becomes unbearable because you have to be released from the contract and find replacement tenants. So pick housemates with care. Like a good wine they should mature well, but just make sure they are not corked first. Finally the best way to sort out problems in a house is to talk about them and then try and negotiate a solution, so if in doubt pick housemates who are at least likely to listen.