We moved to Paris without finding an apartment ahead of time, instead renting a temporary apartment to stay in for the first month while we looked for more permanent housing. We've both been through the apartment searching process back in the U.S. a number of times, but quickly learned that the market in Paris is very different.
When we learned that we might be moving to Paris, we started looking at apartments online. It helped that prior to moving here we had visited Paris (separately and together) several times and had some ideas about which neighborhoods we might want to live in. But even within the general area we targeted, there were a lot of spots with which we were not familiar. I spent a lot of free time with www.seloger.com (a site we were told that "all the Parisians use") open in one window and Google maps open in the other, trying to figure out exactly where all of these apartments were located.
We were lucky enough to be able to visit Paris again this summer, and we used that time to look at our favorite neighborhoods from the perspective of a potential resident rather than a tourist. It was really helpful to walk through all of the streets that we had been looking at online and realize that some places were even nicer than we had suspected (the northern part of the Marais, for example), and that others were maybe not quite what we were looking for (there was a disturbing rat-related incident that ruled out one particular spot).
Narrowing down the neighborhoods was fairly easy, but we still had a lot to learn about apartments in Paris. One crucial piece of information is that a so-called "unfurnished apartment" isn't just an apartment does not have furniture. In Paris, an unfurnished apartment's kitchen usually does not come with appliances, a sink or cabinets. The apartment might not even have light fixtures! The tenant is expected to provide everything, and then to take it all with them when they leave.
We ultimately decided that living with someone else's furniture would be preferable to assembling and installing an entire kitchen within a month or so of arriving in a new country, but we still needed to educate ourselves to properly set our expectations. Our home in the U.S. is about 1200 square feet and has a very typical condo kitchen. Most of the apartments in Paris that we looked at in person or online were in the range of 400 - 700 square feet and had kitchens that were minimalistic by American standards. With my love of cooking I was a little nervous when I would see apartment listings where the kitchen consisted of a small sink, a refrigerator smaller than the one I had in my freshman dorm room, and two electric burners. That's it. No cabinets, no counter, no oven, no freezer except the tiny compartment inside the refrigerator. Not all kitchens were this primitive, but by requiring a kitchen that could actually be used for cooking we were ruling out a number of apartments.
We also saw a lot of apartments that seemed fantastic on paper, but which were on the 7th or 8th floor of buildings without elevators. When our own building's elevator broke the day we left our condo to move to Paris and we had to drag all six of our (very heavy) suitcases down five stories, we were reminded that while we don't generally mind taking the stairs, there are advantages to being on a lower floor.
One thing we didn't realize until we arrived in Paris and started actively hunting for an apartment was just how quickly the market moves here. Our agent told us that if we saw a listing online for a furnished apartment that was more than a day or two old, the apartment was probably already taken. Despite that, it sounded like it was a bit easier finding a furnished apartment than an unfurnished apartment. Apparently unfurnished apartment viewings take place at a single fixed time, everyone who is interested comes to see it at once, and you need to be ready to put down a deposit on the spot. Luckily the market for furnished apartments is a bit less frenzied, since the only competition is generally other expats or people looking for a pied-à-terre in the city.
The whole process was pretty nerve-wracking, and I had visions of ending up camping out on a mattress with the rats if things didn't work out. I found myself spending time every day looking on every website I could find for new apartments and contacting people to try to schedule viewings. We spent an entire day running around the 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th and 12th arrondissements with our agent looking at a number of different places. I think we saw nine or ten apartments over the course of a week.
We were pleasantly surprised by most of the apartments we saw, in part because our agent has access to apartment listings that never even make it to the internet. There were some not-so-nice places (like the one with where the bedroom was in a dingy former kitchen, with the tile backsplash still covering portions of the wall) and some nice places with nightmarish aspects (like huge 3-dimensional Harlequin faces emerging from the bathroom tiles). But eventually we found the right place.
Our new home is in an old building, but the apartment has been completely rehabbed. It has a nice kitchen and the bedroom has a closet so large that we call it the dressing room. There are skylights and high ceilings throughout, giving it an open and airy feeling. And best of all, it seems to be 100% rat-free.
When we learned that we might be moving to Paris, we started looking at apartments online. It helped that prior to moving here we had visited Paris (separately and together) several times and had some ideas about which neighborhoods we might want to live in. But even within the general area we targeted, there were a lot of spots with which we were not familiar. I spent a lot of free time with www.seloger.com (a site we were told that "all the Parisians use") open in one window and Google maps open in the other, trying to figure out exactly where all of these apartments were located.
We were lucky enough to be able to visit Paris again this summer, and we used that time to look at our favorite neighborhoods from the perspective of a potential resident rather than a tourist. It was really helpful to walk through all of the streets that we had been looking at online and realize that some places were even nicer than we had suspected (the northern part of the Marais, for example), and that others were maybe not quite what we were looking for (there was a disturbing rat-related incident that ruled out one particular spot).
Narrowing down the neighborhoods was fairly easy, but we still had a lot to learn about apartments in Paris. One crucial piece of information is that a so-called "unfurnished apartment" isn't just an apartment does not have furniture. In Paris, an unfurnished apartment's kitchen usually does not come with appliances, a sink or cabinets. The apartment might not even have light fixtures! The tenant is expected to provide everything, and then to take it all with them when they leave.
We ultimately decided that living with someone else's furniture would be preferable to assembling and installing an entire kitchen within a month or so of arriving in a new country, but we still needed to educate ourselves to properly set our expectations. Our home in the U.S. is about 1200 square feet and has a very typical condo kitchen. Most of the apartments in Paris that we looked at in person or online were in the range of 400 - 700 square feet and had kitchens that were minimalistic by American standards. With my love of cooking I was a little nervous when I would see apartment listings where the kitchen consisted of a small sink, a refrigerator smaller than the one I had in my freshman dorm room, and two electric burners. That's it. No cabinets, no counter, no oven, no freezer except the tiny compartment inside the refrigerator. Not all kitchens were this primitive, but by requiring a kitchen that could actually be used for cooking we were ruling out a number of apartments.
We also saw a lot of apartments that seemed fantastic on paper, but which were on the 7th or 8th floor of buildings without elevators. When our own building's elevator broke the day we left our condo to move to Paris and we had to drag all six of our (very heavy) suitcases down five stories, we were reminded that while we don't generally mind taking the stairs, there are advantages to being on a lower floor.
One thing we didn't realize until we arrived in Paris and started actively hunting for an apartment was just how quickly the market moves here. Our agent told us that if we saw a listing online for a furnished apartment that was more than a day or two old, the apartment was probably already taken. Despite that, it sounded like it was a bit easier finding a furnished apartment than an unfurnished apartment. Apparently unfurnished apartment viewings take place at a single fixed time, everyone who is interested comes to see it at once, and you need to be ready to put down a deposit on the spot. Luckily the market for furnished apartments is a bit less frenzied, since the only competition is generally other expats or people looking for a pied-à-terre in the city.
The whole process was pretty nerve-wracking, and I had visions of ending up camping out on a mattress with the rats if things didn't work out. I found myself spending time every day looking on every website I could find for new apartments and contacting people to try to schedule viewings. We spent an entire day running around the 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th and 12th arrondissements with our agent looking at a number of different places. I think we saw nine or ten apartments over the course of a week.
We were pleasantly surprised by most of the apartments we saw, in part because our agent has access to apartment listings that never even make it to the internet. There were some not-so-nice places (like the one with where the bedroom was in a dingy former kitchen, with the tile backsplash still covering portions of the wall) and some nice places with nightmarish aspects (like huge 3-dimensional Harlequin faces emerging from the bathroom tiles). But eventually we found the right place.
Our new home is in an old building, but the apartment has been completely rehabbed. It has a nice kitchen and the bedroom has a closet so large that we call it the dressing room. There are skylights and high ceilings throughout, giving it an open and airy feeling. And best of all, it seems to be 100% rat-free.
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