Hi everybody, Was excited to read the recent thread on apartment rent.
As a person who has rented in the last six years, here are my two cents to the discussion: 1) bargains are still on the market but they go FAST. There are reasonable owners and reasonable agents charging 50% commissions. Of course there are apartments which have been on the market for weeks or months. There are agents who may rent you something, and then two-three months later call the owner to say that you pay too low price, then tell him or her to evict you and find somebody else so they can earn more commission. Be strong and if you do not like the agent, just go away and find another one. 2) if you want to make calls yourself, places to try are www.cian.ru and www.kvartirant.ru. Recommend hiding your caller's ID to avoid your number being passed among agents. I was able to find the place where I live now, using this way. 3) if you want people to call you, just search yandex for rent apartment Moscow and you will see many agencies, there you can leave your name and phone numbers with them, then you will get dozens of phone calls from them - but expect 100% commissions (though you will still be able to negotiate during a personal meeting). Usually your name and contact numbers get into their central database which is not available to outsiders. Recommend using a SIM card because annoying calls may continue for two weeks. Also used this method in the past, got a decent place back in 2003. 4) ask your friends - you may be lucky, they may know somebody. I got an apartment through a friend two years ago. 5) make your own Apartment Wanted ads and glue them in the designated area of the search. I have tried this before but it did not work for me, though some on the list say it works. I think it does not work because owners do not pay commissions to agents, so for them the service of an agent is free, so they simply call several agencies to get their clients The main thing in renting is to understand why the apartment is being rented in the city where there is a shortage of the living space. So you have to ask the owner many questions about his/her family, financial situation, etc, ask for papers confirming the ownership, etc. People who do that professionally, like agencies, do follow the market, and you are likely to face rent price increases each year or even more often. However, if you are lucky to find a humble working family, you may be able to avoid any rent increase demands for long time. Rent prices are likely to continue to rise as more people are coming to Moscow to find work. Also, mortgage rates and property prices remain too high for newcomers to afford, hence competition for bargains increases. Generally the most heated months are July and August, as people tend to move during the summer and school holidays. I am now looking myself for a new place and see that I will have to wait for September or October when the market will hopefully cool down. All the best Vladimir _______________________________________________ Expat mailing list [email protected] http://www.lists.ru/mailman/listinfo/expat http://www.expat.ru/forum/
