Hey,
I absolutely loved my first year. I lived in halls so met a lot of people that way although if you're not planning on living in halls you can also meet people through joining clubs and societies or on your course. Everyone's in the same boat so I'm sure you'll get on fine. I would suggest joining in Freshers week as much as you can because that's great fun. The Union is brand new so it's a nice bar and they organise quite a few events like Comedy night, Bands night, The Bop (like a massive school disco) and run shuttle buses to and from some local clubs on certain nights of the month.
The next open day is 12th Feb so you could always go along then or just come one day to look around the campus yourself. If you go to the welcome centre or on the website, you can get a copy of the self guiged tour.
About second year houses, yeah the Uni has a site advertising local approved landlords that are renting or you can contact a local estate agent who can help you find somewhere!
Hope this is helpful.