apartment hunt

we had been seriously looking for an apartment for a month. our current lease runs out june 15th and the owner will move back in. the search has been a real pain. it took all of my time. i sat for hours at the computer scanning the ads, then calling, then going to visit them. it has been much harder this time than last year for many reasons.

firstly, we’re all much more fussy. we wanted a bigger place in a charming old building. everyone had their own personal list of requirements. jj wanted a view of the eiffel tower (i can’t help rolling my eyes every time i tell people this). p wanted a balcony. i wanted it to be close to school so jj could pop back for lunch or hang out with her friends there. i also wanted to be close enough to the champs de mars for dog walks and to continue to see the doggy people. maynard, the dog, wanted a balcony or a yard, or some sort of outdoor space. after looking at some apartments, the wish list got bigger. it should have nice light and maybe a view. it shouldn't feel like a college kid's apartment. it should feel like a grown-up's apartment. we should be able to see the sky. 2 toilets are certainly preferable to one, but if it only had one, it should be in a separate “water closet”. though, certain requirements did get eased. we started looking at more modern buildings, not just “hausmann” or 1930’s era. we would give up charm for a balcony. the allowable distance from school increased. of course, rents are high. the prices have even gone up since last year. there were fewer reasonably priced places – and “reasonably priced” is relative. we increased our rent allocation.

we thought that we might try getting an unfurnished apartment. many of our friends are also expats living in furnished apartments and they all feel the same way. instead of someone else’s crappy furniture, we’d rather have our OWN crappy furniture. we’re willing to spend time and a few thousand at IKEA. plus, we’re tired of other peoples “junk” in the apartment.

in the empty apartments, the french have varying levels in kitchen furnishings. the previous tenant might take with them the things they installed, like the fridge, the stove, the oven, even the cabinets. i not only had lots of practice with my french in just setting up appointments with agents, i also learned the subtleties in the language describing the kitchen. a “cuisine vide” means it has nothing but the walls, a sink and some plugs. it would probably cost minimum 2000 euros to furnish an empty kitchen. a “cuisine amenagé” means there are cabinets but no appliances. a “cuisine equipée” means it may have a stove, an oven and a fridge too, though not necessarily all of them.

there are lots more unfurnished apartments, than furnished apartments, but what we learned was, there are a lot more people going for them too. only the foreigners would be going for a furnished place. any normal person would be looking for an unfurnished place. there is a shortage of apartments in paris. we suddenly found ourselves in competition with loads of french people, people with regular salaried jobs and a credit history. at some apartment viewings there would be 30 french people, all prepared with their “dossier” (bank statements, paychecks, etc) under their arms. in those cases, we figured out that we didn’t have a chance. p was an independent worker (no salary records), we had no tax document from the previous year, i wasn’t working and we were weird foreigners who could (in their eyes) disappear into the ether without paying the rent. plus we have a dog, which they are not allowed to refuse, but we figured wouldn’t be a plus either. we realized it wasn’t just a question of finding the apt we liked, it was also a matter of being accepted as tenants. we knew it would be hard, but we still believed we could do it.

in total, i considered almost 60 apartments over 5 weeks. at first we started out slow, but then i picked up the pace. we found several apartments that would be ok. some of the family liked them, but others didn’t at all. then we found an apartment we all approved. it was offered unfurnished but had some furniture that the landlord would be happy to leave there. it was a good size, on the 5th floor of a nice old building, with a pseudo balcony – big enough to put 2 skinny chairs on, along the wall, with a view of the eiffel tower. one toilet, furnished kitchen. 5-10 minute walk to school, closer to the dog park. we told the agent we wanted it and he asked for a dossier. i moved quickly to put together the papers and took it myself to his office that day, a friday afternoon. the office was dark and i had a feeling he was gone for the weekend. after the weekend and a few weekdays, he called to ask if we had sent the dossier. we told him i had left it at the office. oh, he would go look... we called after several more days and he said he hadn’t given it to the landlord yet. after many back and forths, we felt that either the agent was incompetent, the owner really WAS hard to find (out in the french countryside – not some exotic locale) or we were being jerked around. they were probably waiting for a better candidate. we continued our search. days would pass and we would assume we were out of the running then he’d call back with another document request. finally, they said we could have the apartment if we created a “blocked” bank account – an account with 12 months of rent set aside by the bank, payable to the owner if we stopped paying the rent. time was running out and we were not confident that we would actually get to signing a document with these people. we had a few more places to look at and so we told them we would discuss their request.

jj’s school has a parent website. there was a nice apartment that i had not considered because it was too expensive and a longer walk from school. however, after a month of looking, with our slight budget increases in reaction to the market and an expanding radius around the school, suddenly this apartment merited looking at. owned by the parents of a mom at the school. the apartment was beautiful, furnished tastefully, bright. even though it had no balcony, only one toilet, and was not bigger, it felt right. it was the same distance to the champs de mars in a more bourgeois building, in a more bourgeois neighborhood. we asked if the price was negotiable and she told us right away a price that was attainable – again a little more than we wanted to pay, but there were no agent fees, which made a difference. she had no problem with us having a dog. we asked then and there, “if we wanted it, could we have it?” she said, “yes, i trust you. i am an honest person and i assume you are honest people.” we went to lunch and decided to take it. we signed the next day. it’s amazing what a difference a personal contact makes. coming from the school we were in the same community. it was so easy. what a relief!

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