Salaries and apartment rental in Bonn

I am working in IT field, with currently close to 2 year experience. I am holding Degree..
1) I've got an offer from one of firms in Bonn, it is about 3,400 Eur/monthly..
Still in the mid of nego, do you think this is the acceptable salary rate for my level?

2) And, which area in Bonn that have decent apartment (the best if is in the city/downtown area or close the city or convenient to travel to city).
my budget is around 600 euro...

And is there any English resource that could enable me to find apartment in Bonn (for e.g. apartment rental website would be good).
Should I look for the apt in before I land in Bonn?

Thanks, in advanced, for all the replies...

=)

Shige

Have a look at this thread, may answer some of your questions.

Cost of living in Bonn

I would say that's ok for your experience, depends what you do in IT?

www.immobilienscout24.de seems to be the biggest online source of flats ... stick it in google translate if you need to ... but it should only take you a day to get your head round the words you need to understand for flats. There is plenty for 600e

Bonn südstadt/Poppelsdorf or the Altstadt (Nordstadt) are best or maybe Beul.
See this link:

http://www.bonn.de/umwelt_gesundheit_plane...2BhoJRn6w%3D%3D

for a map of rent levels ... basically Green is good, red is BAD ... Outside of the centre green is nice family houses.(=boring)

be aware that it is not easy to change a flat, Germans like lifetime renters!
try http://www.e-rent.de/en/bonn-apartment.htm for furnished flats on short term rents.

good luck!

Rebecca & Oliver,

Thanks for your reply, appreciate it. =)

My office is located around Martin Luther King. From the map given by you, Oliver, I can spot that the pretty viable area for apartment would be Rüngsdorf, Plittersdorf, Gronau, Bad Godesberg.

Is there any tram/underground train station/bus stop around Martin Luther area?
Which area(s) would you recommend that are the convenient for travelling to Martin Luther Str?

How does the public transportation(train/tram/bus) fee work in Bonn?
Can I purchase a monthly ticket? or single trip?

After some initial research, I found out that the monthly fee of some apt doesn't cover utility bill(such, as electricity and water)
In that case, for single/1 person, how much roughly do I need to fork monthly for studio or 1 room apartment?

Sorry for asking tons of questions... I am quite new to all these... and kinda interested to find out more about the life in Bonn.. and Germany too...

Ciaoz...

Welcome to Bonn!

1. You can take the 610 from Hauptbahnhof till Kennedyallee and walk down to Martin Luther King Str. Timetable here. If you have a monthly / yearly pass, you might as well take another short bus trip from Kennedyalle to Kanalstraße using this route.

2. You can purchase a monthly ticket. Price Cat. 1b. Costs about 82€ p.m. A yearly ticket is much cheaper. I am not sure about the price, but should be somewhere around 40€ p.m.

3. For a single person 1 room apartment in Plittersdorf or Bad Godesberg, expect somewhere around 450 to 550€ p.m. (warm) depending upon the location. A good site to find provisionfrei apartments is http://www.zwischenmiete.de

Cheers,
Bandu.

Hey

It isn't in English, but it isn't too hard to work out...

http://www.studenten-wg.de/angebote_lesen...39ee08dfcf1a42b

That link, although it says it is for students it is not. It is provision free listings there of one room apartments.

Bad Godesberg is quite expensive rent wise from what I know, and there isn't as much to do there as in central Bonn. The connections to BG are very good, so you might just consider commuting (there is a U-bahn to it). If you want to be central and have a car I would recommend the Südstadt, Kessenich, or Gronau - depending on what sort of person you are and what you like to do on a weekend. Endenich is quiet but has supermarkets, basics, Irish pub Fiddlers and theatres in walking distance, but Südstadt has its own very good shopping street on Bonner Talweg and is very central. Kessenich same story but some parts are further out of town, but even those places nearer to the Rhine have great transport and road links. Gronau is like the further away part of Kessenich just with better road links and perhaps less cosy.

To translate details of a place try www.worldlingo.com and then click on machine translation, then the option website translation.

Most people will speak a bit of English if you call up... If you have big problems message me or one of the other Bonners to help (I work as a translator).

Key vocab for German sites though:

Vermieter: landlord
Provisionsfrei
von Privat: provision free
Provision: "finders fee" - avoid at all costs
möbliert: furnished
teil-möbliert: part furnished
Kaution: deposit
Wohnung: apartment
Zimmer: room
Erdgeschoss: ground floor
Kaltmiete or KM: rent excluding additional bills (there will always be some, even if you pay for gas, electric, water separately... they have to pay separately for rubbish removal etc)
Warmmiete or WM: rent including bills (watch out, sometimes Warmmiete means all bills, sometimes it just means heating, sometimes it just means rubbish removal).
Nebenkosten or NK: the price difference between the Kaltmiete and the Warmmiete

Don't know what your level of German is but thought that might help.

Rose.

Oh yeah and watch out for two things:

1) Some landlords just do not like the idea of renting to foreigners. Even "noble foreigners" like the Brits, as one would-have-been landlord commented to me, can experience some troubles. You will be expected to prove your income, or at least write down some details of your employer. I got very pissed off with having to explain each time I am not Eastern European but British, just because I knew it would get a slightly better response. And then still being treated like a criminal just because I don't have a German passport... In the end I found a nice and very reasonable apartment owned by a sympathetic Dutch woman and her German husband.

2) Even if you get a place through an English language site, your contract will likely be in German, so before you hand over any money get someone to look over it. There are some strange differences in renting apartments in Germany compared to the UK, generally more positive but you still have to watch out.

Oh and two more words to know:

Zwischenmiete: time-limited rent, usually because someone is going away for a small amount of time leaving their apartment empty. Often these are furnished, and can work out cheaper. Also, there is less demand for some of these so if you have trouble it is a good idea for while you look for something more permanent.
Mietvertrag: rent contract

Good luck...!

These may also be useful links

http://www.vebowag.de/t3/index.php

http://www.vebowag.de/t3/index.php?id=73

Use google maps to look at the area in more detail.

I would definately take a short term rent for a couple of months while you look around for a place that suits you. Everybody has different tastes. What kind of area do you want ... leafy, studenty, busy, close to work or close to play?

Public transport (trams/buses) are so good that you could easily live anywhere on that side of the Rhein. I know someone who has no problem to commute from Cologne to work in that area.

If you need more help, just ask!

Out of interest how did you find the job? ... I'm looking myself in IT

Hey ya all,

I am so sorry for being absent in this thread for the last 1 week, was in holiday (no internet connection or whatsoever heee) and now trying to get my butt back to real life (heeeheee)...

I am quite thankful that there are a lot of helping hands down here...

Bandu,

I am pretty much excited for the life in Bonn too.

Thanks a lot for finding out the route information, I will look into it later on.
But where can I buy a monthly pass? can I get it in any subway station or?
Can I utilize the monthly pass for both buss and subway (u-bahn)?

Oliver, Rebecca & Rose_in_bonn,

wow.. now I have a couple more resources to look for apt too. =D

I don't have plan to buy a car (well, at least for now). I am thinking of settling down in there first and slowly move forward.
If possible, I would prefer the area which is convenient to my work place (which is, Martin Luther Str) and not too quiet.
Do I sound too demanding? =P
Bad Godesberg and Südstadt seem to be a pretty good area too.
Bandu had given me an idea about the transport info from Bad Godesberg area to Martin Luther but, may I know how to get from Südstadt to Martin Luther Str?

I learnt German up to Level 2 before (2+ years back). So I think simple words might not be a problem for me (I hope so).
For conversation wise, I think I will have a problem but I will start to learn again and practice a lot when I am there.

And to Oliver,
I came across the job through their website ...
May I know which specialization of IT are you in?
I can be considered a young leaf in my career stage, but really look forward to progress further.

How do we subscribe for the internet connection in Bonn? Is it convenient to do so?
Read from somewhere else in this forum, it takes quite sometime to get the internet up and hassle too.
It seems that a lot of people recommend Alice DSL connection.
How do ya think eh?

just noticed your reply now, don't know why system didn't notify me, anyway ...

If you from the US you may find it hard to believe how easy it is to get around here without a car, there are loads of buses and trams ... but actually riding a bike is one of the best ways, there are cycle paths everywhere. Martin Luther strasse to either Bonn center or Bad Godesburg is only going to take you 10 to 15 minutes! So it's not really such a big deal where you chose to live, it really comes down to the actual flat and road ... ie. is it clean/smart and on a quiet or busy road.

For ticket info see http://www.vrsinfo.de/eng/3_0.php the same tickets are used for either bus or tram

Internet ... I just get everything from http://www.t-online.de/ for 50€ a month all calls, and internet ... it may be cheaper now for new customers. It takes about two weeks to get it set up, and a 12 month contract, so if you are not staying in the place then you may be better off with a cheap mobile deal such as http://www.base.de/101_internetflatrate.jsp they do Mobile internet for 25€ a month and flat rate calls for 20€

IT .. I was last an IT manager ... Network and systems admin, firewalls, security, messaging etc is my thing if you hear of anything going.

When are you over?