Apartments in Berlin

Apartments in Berlin are generally quite easy to rent. There is a ready supply of rental accommodation and the prices are reasonable. Finding a cheap and decent place to live in Berlin is relatively easy when compared to other cities such as Munich or London.

The remainder of this page provides information specific to Berlin. For general information regards apartment rental throughout Germany, see the related page: Apartment rental in Germany.

Advice for flathunting

Give yourself two weeks to two months to look, depending on your resources and requirements much money you have & What you are looking for.

For those not in Berlin, recommend using the links in this guide to find a temporary rental: no contract or deposit, where you can stay while looking, on your feet, for your contracted rental apartment.

Procedure is to visit an apartment, if you like it you make an application, then it is down to the landlord to go through the applications and select who they want. For popular districts the landlords can take quite a few days to decide as they have quite a few applicants.

You can find a flat as a 'Nachmeiter', taking over someone else's lease, and if the people moving like you they put in a good word with the landlord. Otherwise, the first name on the list that passes the credit check should get the flat, although I'm sure landlords ignore this and give the flat to the person with the best credit.

Accommodation agencies

OTA-BERLIN - an agency for furnished rental apartments
Room with a Loo is an English-speaking flat-hunting service. They will send you details of flats that they have to let. Some (most?) are on a short-term basis. (edit: ROOM WITH A LOO has been discontinued and has been replaced by a service called EXBERLINER FLAT RENTALS: [1])
GSW.DE: gsw
BERIMMO REAL ESTATE - We are a company that assists & advises you throughout the entire buying process.
URBAN APARTMENTS BERLIN Whether you are staying in berlin for a city trip, a vacation, for business, you are relocating to berlin and need a place to stay until you can move into your apartment or stay in the city for any other reason. Here you can find great apartments in berlins most central and sought after locations. enjoy the privacy of an apartment and get much more value for money than in a hotel.

Advertisement listings

The Saturday Berliner Zeitung has a comprehensive listing for apartments and flats in Berlin. A recent edition (in November 2006) had eleven pages of ads, sorted by neighourhood. The section for flats is called "Immobilien" - the German word for property. I think you can also access the apartments database pages on the web.
Also the Beliner Morgenpost Online: Berliner Morgenpost / Rent
www.wg-gesucht.de / Berlin Rooms in WG's: Collective living arrangments
www.zweitehand.de Temporary and Long-term (contract)
Online listings: www.scout24.de Agencies frequently use, expect fees.

Typical prices

Example 1:I live in a renovated altbau, wood floors, balcony, 2 rooms at 64 sq meters. We pay just under 400 euro warm. That's in Teptow a block away from the park and river on a quite side street full of protected buildings. 10 minute walk to the ring s-bahn, or just around the corner from the bus. You can be at Alex in 20 minutes, or walk to Kreuzberg along the river in 10. When I tell people in the states this, they don't believe me. Nor London.

Example 2:The flat that we got is 95 sqm, 3 rooms and 900 warm, which compared to what we have been paying for a one bedroomed flat in the UK (650 pounds with council tax and all bills on top) is a bargain.

Example 3:When I first moved to Berlin back in 1990 I paid just 220 DM (about 110 Euros) a month warm for a 2 room flat, first in Friedrichshain, and then in Köpenick. In the mid 90s rents had risen and I was paying 440 Marks, about 600 DM warm for a 2 room in Prenzlauer Berg. Now Im in Frankfurt and pay double that for the same space. Admittedly quality and location much better. And nice not to have grafitti and dogshit outside your front door.

Example 4:I live in Prenzlauer Berg, and pay 400 Euros. It is renovated altbau. Wood floors (not finished tho), balcony, 2 rooms and 58sq meters. There is a park with two playgrounds, a theatre, and the WABI kultur center across a noisy-busy Danziger Str. It's about a 10 minute walk from Eberswalder Str.

City districts

Treptow is still a bargain, although in the past year or so it's become more popular.

Prenzlauer Berg can be more expensive.

Friedrichshain Con: full of dog shit and graffiti. Pro: can find reasonable rents - don't assume because it's Fhain you're getting a good deal. Use your feet!

For more detailed and comprehensive info see the main article: Berlin city districts

Further advice and experiences

as a german living in berlin i feel very sorry about a big house as charité not helping with moving - as more as money-effectivness is comming into focus in this country as less helpful and unpolite we get, sorry to say so but berlin is/can be a tough place on top of that. we say it is a kind of melting-pot. areas are very different (like small towns glued to eachother) maybe it is of help for you and other people to know about the appartement/house advertisings in "Tagesspiegel" and "Berliner Morgenpost" at the weekend - you can also check that out online.
we have just returned from a 4 day flat hunt in berlin and we did all the wrong things and went to all the wrong places for 3 days and on the 4th day found something semi-civilized but missed the responsable person to sign the papers.
It was a real nightmare as beginners in berlin we were really lost. My husband starts at the charite in october - probably without us - what i find strange is that the charite offers no relocation service. any tips from anyone would be great as we are now looking at a case of sending my husband flat hunting on his weekends!
Everyone says don not go and pay commision to an estate agent as there are so many empty flats but we get the feeling it would maybe be better?
One tip for any travelling to berlin - we checked out of our hotel to return home by train and wanted to wait 3 hours at the zoo bahnhof but some one said to go to ostbahnhof instead and it was really great there, new and clean unlike zoo , kids thought they were at an airport!
I agree a large organisation which is staff-intensive like a big hospital in a big city should provide at least some assistance, some clue trails if nothing else. When I moved to Berlin in 1990 things were very different. Lived there 7 years, for 3 years I lived near the Ostbahnhof (Hauptbahnhof as it was called then), just off Karl-Marx-Allee. 100 euros a month for 60 sq m. Those were the days...
When we lived in Pberg/Fhain, it was literally a mine field (of dog shit) coming home at night or leaving in the morning if I had to work early (before sunrise). Not too bad at our present location. They at least keep in the garden plots out front or next to the trees (although I still think people should be treated ruthlessly for letting their dogs go even there).