How to find an apartment or room in Munich

So you're seeking rental accommodation in Munich? Make sure you read this page through to the end, it contains lots of useful information. Remember to also read the second page, including the post about tips for first-time renters. Once you're done here, then also read the other page: Apartments in Munich

First decide: do you want furnished or unfurnished? If you choose unfurnished, remember that this means with absolutely no furniture whatsoever. Often there is not even a kitchen or a bathroom - just pipes sticking out of the walls ready for you to connect your own facilities.

Secondly: live alone or sharing? In German the sharing of an apartment is known as "Wohngemeinschaft" or "WG" for short.

If you are looking for a flat to yourself, short-term, and pre-furnished, then you should check the following four advertised agencies:

• Frederics Serviced Apartments
  [img]http://www.toytowngermany.com/xtra/adverts/frederics.gif[/img]
  
  Frederics offer furnished apartments available for long-term stays. The apartments are particularly suitable for business travellers, commuters, town-to-town travellers, and newcomers to Munich who are finding their feet in the city.
  
  
• Liz Frey
  [img]http://www.toytowngermany.com/xtra/images/liz-frey.jpg[/img]
  
  Liz Frey is not an accommodation broker, but an excellent service provider for furnished accommodation in Munich. Being her customer guarantees you superb service mentality and negotiation skills so that you can get your ideal roof and home. A wide choice of apartments, 1- 2, or 3-bedroom flats or houses is provided on her daily updated offers on her website.
  
  Liz Frey is now the biggest – single run – accommodation agency and has placed herself well amongst the top five furnished accommodation companies in Munich. Her speed of response together with her inbred sense of customer service and fairness make her a top address to approach.
  
  
• HomeCompany Munich
  [img]http://www.toytowngermany.com/xtra/adverts/homecompany.gif[/img]
  
  Established in 1986, HomeCompany Munich is the first and therefore probably most experienced agency of its kind in Munich. Here you find a wide range of furnished accommodation offers for long term as well as for short-term rental (a minimum of one month applies however). HomeCompany's objects vary from rooms in shared flats over larger apartments to entire houses - whatever takes your fancy. With the company's warm and helpful service, HomeCompany do their best to make you feel at home in your new place of residence.
  
  
• Mr. Lodge
  
  Mr. Lodge is a professional Munich furnished accommodation agency. They are considered the largest in Munich. They have on their books hundreds, if not thousands of furnished appartments for short term and long term rentals. These include 1,2, and 3 room apartments as well as complete houses.
  
  Mr. Lodge is a very international company. They have ten employees including people from the UK, Sweden, South Africa, Hungary, and of course Germany. In addition to English and German they can also speak with you in Spanish, Italian, French, Swedish, and Hungarian.

In all three cases above, securing an apartment involves payment of a fee to the agency. The exact fee depends on how long you rent for, it is a sliding scale. If you sign a rental contract for 1 month you pay an agency fee of something like 29% of the monthly rent. For 6 months or more you might pay 116% of the monthly rent.

Other accommodation listings including unfurnished:

Munich Mitwohnzentrale - The Mitwohnzentrale (English translation: "Shared accommodation agency"), or MWZ for short, is primarily a service for finding rooms in shared flats, i.e. student type accommodation. But they have many whole flats for rent too.

Kurz und Fündig - If you want to take the independent route to finding accommodation you should check out Kurz und Fündig. This is a classifieds newspaper which is available in all Munich newsagents. The paper comes out twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays) and costs around €2. Every week it has hundreds and hundreds of adverts for rooms and flats. The best thing to do is to buy the paper the moment it comes out and immediately start calling the adverts which are suitable. The classifieds are also available on the website. Each advert has a code number. You need to call a special premium rate phone number, enter the code, and then the recorded message will give you the telephone number of the advertiser.

Sueddeutsche Zeitung - The Süddeutsche Zeitung, Bavaria's main broadsheet newspaper, also carries classified adverts for rooms and apartments to rent. Although it usually has fewer adverts than Kurz und Fündig. The day to get the paper is Fridays.

Abendzeitung - Munich's local evening paper. Click "immobilien" to get the accommodation classifieds.

EasyRoomMate.com - The running joke about this website is that it enables you to find room mates who are "easy". Of course that's not true. Well, it might be. But what the creators of this service mean is that they make it easy for you to find room mates. The website was originally an American production. But in recent months it has picked up steam in Germany and there now seem to be lots of offers available in Munich. Although most of them are in German.

Start-up-Services, Munich - Start-up-Services is an independent provider of relocation services in and around Munich with over 20 years of experience. They offer homesearch, handing over of apartments, authority registation, visa and work permit assistance, pre-view trips, departure programs, and more.

For even more information about accommodation hunting in Munich, including average rental prices, desirable districts to live in, etc., check out the TT guide page: Apartments in Munich.

Temporary accommodation while you search:

An important point to note is that it is much easier to find a place if you are already in Munich. Almost all landlords prefer to meet their tenants in person before signing a contract. So if you're coming in from abroad, or elsewhere in Germany, you should be prepared to live for a week or two in temporary accommodation such as the 4 You Hostel, the YMCA Hostel, or a friend's living room sofa.

Using the TT classified adverts:

The best way to respond to an apartment advert which you have seen listed in Classifieds / Accommodation Offered is to send a Personal Message (known as a "PM" for short) to the original author of the advert. Simply click the button labed "PM" at the bottom left of the post. Remember to include your contact details in your personal message - i.e. telephone number and e-mail address.

It is recommended that you do not post a reply to the public forum which says something like 'please send me more details'. This achieves nothing because the original author is most likely not a regular reader of this website and so will never see your enquiry. Such posts will be removed.

Finally: remember that the classifieds are a more serious area of the TT forum. A few jokes are always good, but the conversations here should be kept mostly business-like.

Here are some more ideas of sites where you can look for shared accommodation, called WG (=Wohngemeinschaft) in Germany

wg-gesucht

shared accommodation for students

deutschland WG

WG Welt

Check out: CityRent GmbH

They manage big renovation projects thus usually have a big choice of places.

I got a great 52m2 apartment in Schwabing North for 620 warm and no commision but they had some smaller/cheaper places too... highly recommended agency.

Also worth noting is Swiss Re (a very large insurance company) own lots of flats in Munich and advertise them here.

http://www.srg-immobilien.de

The thing that seperates them from your usual Letting agency is that you get the benefit of dealing with a large company as your landlord as well as your agent and also they do not charge any Makler fees- you pay the rent and deposit only. Also all their flats seem to be with a built in kitchen.

HTH.

I was in the Goethe Institute on Sonnenstrasse yesterday and was impressed by the number of apt ads on the second floor board- a good place to check and all the ads are in english and german.

www.planethome.de is one place to start.

I used Immobilien Scout

just been on that...loads of them are from Immobiliens with Makler fees to pay. bah!

try also...

http://www.1a-immobilienmarkt.de (almost never agency fee)

http://www.wohnpool.de/ (no middle man)

hope this helps!

i have moved 4 times in munich & the only maklerfrei moves i have had or heard about have been through friends/word-of-mouth/company notice boards... the outsider is to contact breweries/gaststaette as every now and again they offer maklerfrei appartments above their pubs/restaurants ...but that depends if you're up for living above a boozer

Forget pwib-gmbh (Infoboerse). This is a deceptive operation and a waste of your money.

What this woman does is simply collect ads from the local newspapers and charge you a bundle to read them. There is a delay between when the paper appears on the newsstand and when the ads therein are posted on this site. Inevitably most of the desirable offers will be gone before you see them at Infoboerse.

I paid EUR 69 (I recall) to join this site a year ago because there were something like 60-70 apartments listed online in my desired area and price category. Oh what a great selection, I thought. Well, after paying my money it turns out that fully 85% were dead leads -- off the market for as long as a couple weeks or more and still on the site. And of course the ones that were left were not interesting. I had spent another EUR 10-20 on prepaid cell phone costs (borrowed from a friend) in order to find this out. I was extremely pissed but could not get a cent back from this hard-nosed Weib. So I'm doing a little Truth-In-Advertising for her here.

You can get exactly the same information *for free* before it appears on the Infoboerse. Just go to your local Stadtbibliothek and have a look at the daily papers. Or spend a few EUR at your newsstand to snap up the papers as soon as they arrive. Just ask the newspaper vendor what time and day the Sueddeutsche, AZ or whatever containing the apt-rental classifieds (Mietwohnungen Kleinanzeigen) is delivered and you'll be among the first to see the ads. They'll recommend the best ones for the area you want to live in. The SZ is also online (immocenter.sueddeutsche.de). Check it several times a day. After getting screwed by Infoboerse I found a very good deal in Schwabing through the SZ immocenter last year, direct from the owner so I paid not a cent for a Provision and nothing to browse the ads.

One way to gain a significant advantage is to spend about EUR 11 to place an apartment-wanted ad in the Sueddeutsche. I recall these come out twice a week. You will definitely get calls--I've placed ads here two or three times in the past 15 years and each time got numerous phone calls from owners -- i.e. no Provision to pay -- where I was essentially the first candidate.

You can do the same thing in the freebie-ad paper Kurz und Fuendig (quoka.de), but since your ad is gratis it will appear amongst scores of other apt-wanted ads placed by your thrifty competitors and you have much less of an advantage. K&F is not free at the newsstand or online -- you can browse free but have to register (& pay) to get contact info. But it's free at the library.

For some owners you are at a disadvantage by being foreign and transient. For others who may want to raise rents more often (when you move out after a year or two), or practice their English, you will be a prize. So it can pay to mention that you're Anglo or American. I got plenty of calls by billing myself as "Wissenschaftler aus USA" or something to that effect. Foreign is generally not undesirable if it's Brit, US, Aussie etc.

Viel Glueck bei der Wohnungssuche!

Agreed. This works. Surprisingly enough.

But take care about including your e-mail and/or phone number in the advert. If you do include these details, you'll get spam mails and cold-calls from "Umzug Dienstleistungservices" offering to move all your furniture for you.

And another couple of tips:

when arranging an appointment for a viewing be sure to ask if you are the only person viewing at that time. If you go through a particularly lazy agent you'll find they often arrange for all viewings to happen simultaneously. You'll be looking round the flat with 30 other desperate homeless people. Not only is it a waste of your time, but it's also humiliating. Only book a "Besichtigungs Termine" if you know you're gonna get a special one on one viewing. Make the Makler work for their living!!!

Secondly, whilst viewing somewhere the other day another guy came in to look at the flat. He whipped out a laser gadget which measured the distances wall-to-wall. I pissed myself! I though, "how anal can these people get???". But sure enough, the flat had been advertised as being bigger than it really was! The landlord and agent had added 5 or 10 quadrat meter on, knowing that nobody would tell the difference.

I don't know where you can get these measuring things. Probably Conrad. Not sure it's really worth the bother. But take care about advertised measurements!

in relation to posts for rooms for rent, what does NO KAUTION or PROVISION mean?

kaution = bond, or deposit (recoverable when you move out providing there is no damage to the property)
provision = agents or finders fee (not recoverable)

Just wondering what is the TT'ers choice when it comes to look for an apartment?

Do you use Mr.Lodge, look online, use the papers, word of mouth etc?

Heard a few people mention the Suddeutsch newspaper before now. "Get the Friday edition when it comes out Thursday night, thats the best one."

But I always hear that apartments are gone either the same night or the next day?? Now I've always been used to Landlords letting a few people view an apartment before they lease it to someone.

well ya know, once they've had 50 people call to make an appointment to see the place, they know it'll go, so they don't let any more see it. That's what they mean. They'll usually just stop answering the phone Thursday evenings. You get that SZ at one of the newspaper stands and bring your mobile because if you wait to get home to call, you'll miss out.

(Wonder if this happens anymore -- last time I looked was Fall of 2000 and there were lines of people down three staircases and out into the street sometimes... that was when an apt was advertised with the time of viewing and the exact address and you didn't have to call to get the details. I've heard the market's not so tight now though. We got our current place through friends.)

I'm moving to Munich in September with my family. So far I have had limited success in finding rented accommodation. I've searched on Scout24, emailed immobilien and spoken on the phone. In the main, the responses have been either poor or non-existant.

It looks as though I will have to arrive in September, find a house to rent and then bring the family over later. This is a problem for the children's schooling, but I don't see an alternative at the moment.

The children are enrolled at the Munich International School, and so I am looking to rent around the Starnberg area so that they have a short trip to school. I will have to get to Unterhaching for work, but it's best that I have the longer trip.

Can anybody offer advice on immobilien that might be able to give me a little more support and assistance? I am more than willing to hop on a plane for a day or two's house hunting, but need to have confidence that there will be something worth seeing when I get there!

Thanks

Nick

Topics merged by admin

Here is the link to the website of the relocation agency which helped us find accommodation in Munich:

http://www.fs-relocation.com/

You really should consider going to a relocation agency. Apart from the language convenience, they are in regular contact with many immobilien and are at the front of the queue when good property comes on the market, as many immobilien distribute their lists to the relocation folks before they start to publically advertise. Immobilien prefer the Relo companies becasue the pre-qualify the client, and there is less of an issue with money. Not only does the Relo agent help with the finding of the property they deal with the pitfalls in securing and moving in to it. Costs money, true, but saves problems later. Because of the predominance of Ex-pats in the Starnberg area due to the presence of MIS the relocation companies have quite a strangle-hold in this area...

YL6

Thanks for the advice.

I have no problem with approaching a relo agent. How much should I expect them to charge? So far, it sounds like the Kaution is about 3 times rent, the immobilien charge about 2.2 times rent to provide the property, and so the relo will be some multiple of the rent on top of that?

Think I need to get into property management in Germany - somebody must be raking in a fortune!

Most Relo companies either charge according to time consumed in working for you or offer a series of packages such as "House Finding", "Familiarisation", "Paperwork" or whatever... RAA advertise here, or alternatively try Swift Relocation who are in the south of Munich and therefore more familiar with Starnberg.

Important: If talking to a Relo company ask if they or any of their staff are ex-pats or have had experience of relocation themselves. In my opinion, if you've not experienced it you should not be advising on it.

YL6

Immocenter.Sueddeutsche is a great place to look - but the ads are in German (the big explanation thread should help though). I did a first look and there are 92 places listed which have 2+ bedrooms, balcony and parking, the range is about 750-2000€/month warm. So a big range.
Is you company willing to pay any relocation costs at all?
Because it's a big thing to move a family without support.

Hi there,

I am looking for a rental apartment in Munich, and have been using the Süddeutsche Zeiting (online) so far. Most apartments listed there have Provision included which I would like to avoid. I will get the Kurz und Fündig this week, but would like to use the internet as it generally has more information provided up front.

Can anyone recommend any other trustworthy internet sites that I could try out? I found one which required you to pay 70 Euro upfront and they would send weekly emails listing flats matching my search criteria, but was unsure if it was safe to use. Any help would be appreciated!!!

Thanks in advance!

DE

Topics merged by admin

Somebody posted a warning earlier to the effect that the "€70" site you mention - or a similar one - is a scam because the listings they send you consist of ads already published elsewhere...

what about http://www.cs-wohnungsagentur.de/amikaro.html

does anybody have any feedback about them?

Kurz und Fündig website is now www.quoka.de and it seems that you don't have to dial the special number anymore. Private contact details are readily available.

I would have to back up the recomendation to look in the second floor pin board at the Goethe Institut in Sonnenstrasse. THose adverts are made for lost foreigners who need a place to stay between one month or forever.

For new comers to Germany the rent regulations (deposit fee's final cleaning painting etc) can be pretty daunting. One mistake that most people seem to make and surprisingly has not been mentioned in this forum before is when taking short term furnished accommodations, is that people pay a deposit and sign a contract agreeing to paint when they leave. THIS IS TOTAL AND COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY, its only purpose is to enrich the landlord by ensure when you leave in a few months time he gets to renovate at your expense. I have been on the road for almost 5 years through out Europe and for the most part stay in short term furnished accommodations (including almost 2 years in Munich) and I have never paid a deposit or signed a contract. I have on occasion had to pay a small cleaning fee (nothing near what Mr. Lodge charges) of perhaps 50 or 75 euros but never more.

The reason is simple, the landlord is receiving at least 100% above what he could rent the apartment for, throw in some old bed, some moth eaten couch, a TV that hardly works and Viola your in the business of short term lets.

I did look at one place where the landlord wanted a contract but I stated no deposit (letter from company in lue of) no painting at the end and no notice to move. he was being offered 1200 a month for an apartment that would normally rent for 700 so I wasn't willing to do any extra. We ended finding another place that required none of the above.

Let me repeat this. When renting short term accommodations DO NOT LEAVE A DEPOSIT OR SIGN A CONTRACT AGREEING TO PAINT AT THE END! Its not neccescary. if the landlord insists on you doing go somewhere else.

One doesn’t have to be in Germany very long to realize that when it comes to renting Germans do it very differently than the rest of the world. This isn’t meant to be a definite guide to renting in Germany but rather some tips and tricks to avoid major hassle and expense when moving out.

A few important tips

First off you will be required to sign a rental agreement and put up to 3 months deposit. Sometimes you may have to pay a fee to an agency (Makler) up to 2 months plus VAT.

Kaution (deposit) the rent deposit goes into a special bank account which requires both signatures. This has to be done at the bank. Other wise the money goes into his pocket and you have limited legal recourse at the end if you disagree repair and cleaning costs. This is the kind of thing a dodgy landlord will try to get away with.

Secondly you will be usually given a choice of painting now or when you leave. Always always ask to leave the place unpainted. If you agree to paint it when you leave it has to be the landlords satisfaction, which means if you paint it and he doesn’t like it he brings in the professionals and bills it to you. You will also have a harder time fighting damages.

Make note of any problems (scratches on floor etc) this must be noted in the contract.

For those who are being relocated by youir company make sure that the contract is in the company name and not yours, this means they are responsible for the deposit and closing down the place when you move. Means less hassle when you leave.

Legal insurance may seem like a waste of money but in Germany you need it. Alternatively you can join the Renters association. This is cheaper and just as good but you will need good German skills

How to do everything wrong and really really hate living in Germany

This is what happen to a couple form Britboard. They were relocated from America to Germany, they rented a large older empty house from a co-worker. Heating was by propane and were told it would cost about 1000 a year. They also paid the kaution out of their pocket rather than having the company pay it or provide a letter.The actual heating costs turned out to be much higher than that, so much so that they were forced to move. After moving they fought with landlord over getting the rent deposit back, after getting lawyer involved (at their expense) they finally received a letter telling them of all the damage down and why they would get no money back. Because the money wasn’t placed into a special account they had a hard time fighting it.

What they did wrong, well just about everything

1. They should have asked to have the contract in the company name.
2. The kaution (rent deposit) went into the landlords bank account instead of a joint account, this left them with little legal recourse to fight it.
3. The problems with the floor should have been noted in the contract.
4. When it became apparent that the heating costs were way out of line they should have contacted a lawyer (specializing in renters) and brought along a translator. The lawyer then draws up a letter explain that the heating costs are out of line and they will not be paying the rent until this issue is settled. At this point the landlord contacts his lawyer and they send loads of letters back and forth, a court date is set and then the judge rules on who is right. Generally speaking Judges look kindly upon poor tenants, worse case scenario you have to pay the rent. In this instance most people felt that the heating costs were so far out of line that the landlord would have been held responsible for part of the costs.
5. When the landlord refuse to return the rent deposit contact a lawyer and if he still refuse to return it or disputes damages or dosen’t give you an itemized bill for repairs it will mean going to court. This happen to a friend of mine and it cost the land lord 12.000 DM.

Important note on Short Term Lets (furnished apartments)

Munich seems to be a bit unusual in that many landlords require you to sign a contract and post a deposit. If your coming over from America I highly suggest you let you company handle it. If you run into problems it will be very difficult to follow up on.

Secondly if possible try and find a place that requires neither, it can be done, I have never paid a deposit or signed a contract for short term housing.

If you do have to sign a contract make sure the condition of the place is clearly marked, you don’t have to note every scratch or stain, but the more detail you can provide the better. It would be sufficient to note that there are stains on the carpet (so you don’t have to steam clean it two months latter) and stains scratches on the wall, and that the couch is old and tired out. Oven is dirty etc. Basically you want to make sure you only have to worry about a final cleaning when you leave and not repainting the whole place. Also be careful about notice so you don’t get stuck paying for empty place. It seems like a real pain to do this when you may only be in the place for 2-3 months but its the only way to protect your self against dodgy landlords.

Important note on Telephone and DSL

Its not that common to find places in Munich with telephone and Internet. If your place doesn’t have it, I don’t recommend setting up your self. It is very expensive to do. Best bet is to find a place with telephone and Internet and ask them to turn the phone on against a deposit (100 to 200 euros is quite reasonable) or as an alternative have them install it and you pay extra per month, but the line rental is in the landlords name not yours. Either that or get a laptop with wireless and find a local free hot spot.

Important Note: if you have updated information or corrections please PM me rather than posting a reply and I will have editor Bob or Bill or Joe or whom ever correct it, this way someone doesn’t have to read through 25 posts to find updated info.

Legal insurance offered by Renters Association (Mieterverein) does not cover complaints and disputes originated within 3 months period after membership start.

Websites for finding accommodation in Munich, ...no agencies

Does anyone know where I can offer my Thalkirchener (München) flat to rent on the www?
Of course additional to Toytown Germany!

Topics merged by admin

Well there is craigslist which a lot of Americans use outside of Germany. This would be handy especially if it is a short term rental you are looking for.

Hello!
if you are looking for an accommodation for some days, you can also have a look at: www.bedandbreakfast-zeevat.de. There are rooms with breakfast included and no feeling that you are not in your house.

Found this site on the ww.dkfa.de listing of accomadation resources:

http://www.mitwohnzentrale.de/suchergebnis.php

I am a student coming to Munich from the US for a 6 month internship.
I need cheap and safe accommodation. Any suggestions please? Unfortunately, I dont know German and thus having difficulty in negotiating most of the sites mentioned.
Thanks!

thanks to TT,
so i am moving to Munich soon, end of march, this website - tt, has proved invaluable, sincerely.
I managed to locate a flat using http://www.quoka.de/.
No agency fees either. they seem very expensive.
Arranged all over internet and phone (had a colleague go and see the flat for me on my behalf)

If I can ask a naive question:

Many of these apartment services list the provision as being, say 50% plus 19% tax. Is the 19% calculated from the 50% provision, or is it 19% of the entire bill (i.e. you'd have to pay an additional 19% every month)?

Thanks so much!

Hmm I don't know where you got the 50% from, but usually the provision would be the equivalent to 2 months of rent plus the 19% of that amount which is the VAT (mehrwersteuer) that the agent would have to pay to the government for selling you a service.

My experiences of moving to Munich (from Frankfurt):

I used a similar site to the above called Vermiet Dienst which costs EUR25.95 for 90 days, which like a few other sites sites contain a list of provision-free apartments advertised elsewhere eg Suddeutsche Zeitung. I found it helpful in the sense that I did not have to spend a lot of time scanning other websites or buying newspapers.

But the website is not as user-friendly as cs-wohnungsagentur updated link
You cannot put any specific requirements like Balcony or Garage as you can with cs-wohnungsagentur. And the price for cs-wohnungsagentur is EUR29.95 for 6 months which is cheaper in the long run. Athough had already registered with VermietDienst so was did not bother with registering with cs-wohnungsagentur as it seemed to have the same ads.

You can view the apartment ads of both sites without registering, but to see the contact details of the landlord you need to register.

Hi!

I'm going to work in DoCoMo for a period of 3 months, starting on 14/09/2007, and I'm having huge problems finding a place.

Does anyone know someone that has a room available?

Thanks!

What are your problems? There are loads of apartments available. What's your budget? In what area would you like to live? Roughly what sized apartment are you looking for? Do you want furnished or unfurnished?

Presumably for 3 months you'd be wanting furnished. So...budget, size and location?

And what is DoCoMo? I'm guessing it's a company of some description rather than a little-known Bavarian village.

Hi,

DoCoMo is a research lab in Munich.

One of the problems is that I don'tn speak german...

Another problem is finding something without having to pay to a relocation agency.

I'm looking for a studio or a room (furnished), the nearest possible to DoCoMo (or in a such way that it is to get there by public transportation; I think that there is a train station nearby: Liam...). The address for DoCoMo is

Landsberger Straße 312
80687 Munich

Probably it is easier to use GoogleMaps: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&...p;z=13&om=1

Related to budget, as cheap as possible :-) For a room, it could be something like €300, €350. For a studio, I would say €500.

Thank you!

I am getting next week a big flat in front of DoCoMo.
I could share it for a while.
If interested, PM me.

Thanx to TT. I found room thru quoka.de after lot of struggle

I have been looking for 3 weeks and only one lead. But when i called the guy it was gone... I just cant afford provision. I have a work/residance permit good for the next three years!! Does any one know if I can get help from the wohnungs amt?

I just had my first experience with apartment searching and renting today.

OMG! I am, for certain, not in Kansas anymore.

About 30 people filed into this small apartment and milled around looking at, and into, everything. It was a bit disorienting, actually. For me, looking for a place is easy. Besides the obvious neighborhood/location/style choices, I have two criteria about any apartment I will rent: a separate eating area from the living room, and a good sized bathroom. This place had both. So after seeing the apartment for 15 seconds, I was all set to rent it. The other prospective renters were studying the molding and floors and door jams, everything really. So I went and asked my real agent (who was with me representing me) how do I do the deal? She said we have to fill out paperwork, send in a letter about what a great tenant I will be, my income, how long I will be renting it, etc. I asked how a landlord decides who gets the place, and suggested we offer 100Eu per month MORE than the asking price. Boom! I thought she was going to throw me down the stairs, she hustled me out of earshot so fast. Apparently, bidding up the asking price is a big no-no.

I work for a big German company and make a decent living (and the company pays all the bills here), so I guess I should be hopeful about getting the apartment. But I don't think I can do much more of this apartment hunting. If my experience was typical, then I wish everyone out there the best of luck in landing a place to live. You'll need it!

I have a question about pets. I own a cat with my girlfriend. And we are looking for flat at the moment.

Often landlords ask if we own an animal in the application. I was wondering how important it was for them and therefore should we tell the truth about?

How often people with pets get rejected?

I found an awesome place and I do not want to miss it. So should I tell the truth or not?

Thanks,
Koubiak

See the related topic: Pet cats in rented apartments