I am pleased to write that finally, as of last Friday, four and a half long weeks of apartment hunting came to an end! We will move into our new home this weekend. Julius and I are lucky that the first three weeks of our search occurred before he started his school year, because apartment hunting takes quite a bit of time and mental and emotional energy!

some peculiarities about apartment hunting in Germany (and particularly Munich):

Figuring out the system. Apartments are listed to rent on this internet site, where you set up an account, create a profile, enter search criteria, view listings and contact owners/realtors directly through the site or via phone. When you spend a lot of time on this web site, you learn what to look for, how to spot scams, when new listings often appear, etc. We looked at lots of other apartment web sites at the beginning, but found out pretty quickly that most other search engines don’t actually have their own unique listings; rather, they almost all link you over to immobilienscout24.de.

The Munich housing market. Munich is one of the most expensive cities in Germany and affordable housing is hard to come by. Continue reading →