WG-Gesucht

I can't believe it's been a month since I arrived in Germany. So much has happened and I won't be able to write (let alone recall) some of the small details that I hoped to have written down here.

Anyway I'm gonna talk about the main thing that's kept me busy in the last two weeks which is looking for a flat - or as they call it here: eine WG (short for Wohnungsgemeinschaft).

Before I left for Germany, I was told by my work that my accommodation would be "sorted out". Without a lot of things clear at that stage anyway, I said fine, and arrived and was put up in a hotel. The first week and a half went by and I was thinking they were looking for something for me, until I received a nice email from the HR team which said more or less:

"Hi! Here are some nice websites where you can find a flat! We'll extend your hotel for two more weeks while you look. Good luck!"

And though I was a little annoyed at first, I thought this would be a nice experience; that I would learn something. So "los geht's!" I said to myself.

I did learn some things, but I must say the experience was far from rosy.

Challenge number #1 - furnished apartments are few and far between.

Without the luxury, or even foresight of bringing furniture with me, I of course needed a room with some furniture. You know, like a bed to sleep on, for example.

I had read about this beforehand and had expected to find fewer furnished apartments. My initial search result turned out about 70 places, activating the möbliert filter whittled it down to about 30.

Lovely room, but no furniture.

Challenge number #2 - flathunting is like dating.

The article linked above I think sums up the experience better than I could write it. But anyway, this aspect was challenging for me on a personal level, having to overcome slight social anxiety and general inexperience in this field :)

What I can say is that when I sent messages to people letting flats, I was pretty up-front with the fact that I was a Filipino-Kiwi who didn't know too much German. "Du musst mit mir geduldig sein!" I'm not sure if this helped or hurt my cause. I don't think it's worth speculating over.

Challenge number #3 - time and timing.

August is the month between semesters, so a lot of students starting in the new semester are flat-hunting and competition is high in Fulda (there's a Hochschule - kind of like a uni/polytech and a few smaller schools - but it's definitely a kind of student town).

I had effectively only 2 weeks to find a place, which didn't help the stress levels either.

Challenge number #4 - location.

As I don't have a car, I needed to find a place near a bus stop, preferably on the route that goes to my work place. That pretty much limited me to the town centre), which of course commanded the highest prices and smallest rooms.

Challenge number #5 - living alone was not an option.

I wanted very much to connect with some local people outside of work. And the thought of living alone was a bit depressing (even though I'm not the type of person that needs to constantly be with someone). There were some nice options for single-room apartments, which I thought would make for a nice backup in case I got desperate and really couldn't find a flat in time.

My two weeks of flat hunting kind of went by in a blur. I lost a lot of sleep poring through search websites, looking at pictures, reading/translating flat descriptions (very, very slowly at first), and writing/responding to people advertising the flats. I must have sent about 10-15 inquiries (definitely more than half of the appropriate options, given my specific needs!). No replies from half, and the other half with a "thanks for inquiring, we'll get back to you", which they either didn't, or took an impolite amount of time to message back saying "sorry, we've filled the room, good luck with your search!"

I ended up having one flat visit - it was for a 15m² room in a good location. The pictures looked reasonable and the girl I was texting about the room was friendly and responsive. Finding this place was a funny experience - I arrived well on time (as has now become the norm for me ;) ) but for some reason when arrived at the door, the doorbell didn't have the names that I was looking for, i.e. it wasn't the right place.

I called the girl on my phone and what ensued was a comical 8-minute conversation in my terrible German while I was running up and down the road trying to find the place, understand what the girl was asking, and trying to describe where I was. I got so flustered, the only thing I could understand from what she was saying was "wo bist du?!" many times over.

I ended up finding the place (it was down an obscure, unsignposted right-of-way), met the girl and the other flat mate there - who, by the way, ended up actually knowing fluent English; why they didn't switch to English puzzles me, but I'm happy they didn't as I got a good German lesson out of it.

They showed me to my room and... it was empty. Ok, well bar a set of drawers, there was nothing. "You can't tick the 'furnished' symbol when you have no furniture!" I wanted to say. But then I settled for "this is a little less furnished than what I had expected..."

I had a short conversation with them - they were nice people - but I needed furniture, and the room, kitchen and living room were rather small and a little bit dingy.

So it was a bit of a failure and I was hopeful to find another place. But then my allocated time at the hotel was running short and I was starting to get desperate. I thought, okay, I'll start inquiring about single-room apartments. I sent a few messages for some good options - they were about 50% more expensive than a room in a shared flat - but they were properly furnished and looked half-decent. Most of these places were being offered through 1 or 2 real-estate agents - and when I got their reply, I came across:

Challenge number #6 - "sorry, I'm not interested in renting to you for less than a 2-year contract period"

"What? Are you serious?" I wanted to say.

I'm going to speculate here why this is - until only very recently (a few months ago, I think), real estate agents used to charge letting fees to the tenants. So when you find a rental property, you would then have to pay the real-estate agent this "provisions" fee, which I think is about 2 months' rent - this is already on top of a security deposit (of up to 3 months' rent) , and any rent payable in advance.

Of course, this is completely crazy and opposite to almost all other first-world countries, where the landlord bears the cost of letting fees. And eventually the law was changed because the German people finally realised how unfair this was.

Which comes to the point of why I think they won't rent for less than two years - because then the landlord will have to pay the letting fee more often, for each new tenant. The explanation makes sense to me anyway, but I am happy to be enlightened if this isn't the case.

The real-estate agent did give me two names of places where I might be able to find a short-term furnished rental.

I got in contact with one of them, and from the website it looks like I would be paying double the rent compared to a flat - but at this point, I was going to settle for almost anything.

I went for a room viewing on Sunday and the place was not too bad - it had the basic amenities I would need, but it was really quite cramped, and the room stunk of smoke (even though smoking was not allowed in the rooms).

I got a copy of the rental contract and mulled over it for a good 15 minutes, trying to translate all the words in it. "You don't have to sign it now, you can look at it tonight and we can sign it tomorrow, " the owner said.

I arrived at work on Monday morning and opened up my emails - "Hi there, sorry for the late reply, I've just moved to New York and haven't had time to go through my emails. Are you still interested in my room by any chance? (in a shared flat)"

"Umm, hells yes. But I was literally about to sign for another place so we need to organise a flat viewing, like, tonight. And I need a yes/no pretty much asap, because I'm going to sign for the other place if I don't feel secure about this arrangement. No pressure. Lol."

Okay, it wasn't so casual like that. But he quickly got back to me and gave me the contact for the other flatmate living there already.

I had my colleague help me call the person I visited yesterday to ask if he would hold the room/contract for one more day because I was looking at another place. "You need to tell me by morning, otherwise I have to offer it to someone else."

I arrived to the flat that evening, and hallelujah I hit the jackpot - a top notch location, a nice big room (21sqm - big enough!) with all the furniture I needed, kitchen, washing room, two toilets and a bathroom, and best of all a really nice flatmate who was so nice and taking my broken German in her stride. It turns out she'd been an au-pair in NZ for a year, and when I saw the Six60 poster in her room, I was like, "you and I are gonna get along just fine".

Home for the next 4 months

 "Thanks for visiting. I've got two other people who want to view the flat so I will be in touch. " she said.

And then I explained the situation to her about needing an answer by the morning - hoping that I wasn't killing my chanced by insisting on a quick reply.

"I'll have to get in touch with (the guy sub-letting his room) and will let you know in the morning then."

I was at work when I got the message - "we'd love to have you take the room if you are still interested :)"

And the rest is history.

We've already cooked dinner together (pasta!) and I got to meet her friends one Saturday night out. There's another guy living there who I haven't met yet as he's on holidays and will be back in the coming days. If he's as good as the girl is then I will be completely stoked.

The only tricky thing about this is that I only have the place until the end of the year as the tenant will be back as he returns from his semester abroad.

So I will have to find another place at the end of the year, and play this game all over again. #notlookingforwardtoit