How to find an apartment to rent in Hamburg

If you are about to move to Hamburg or you are planning to stay here for a longer time, the first thing you need to do is to rent an apartment. As you probably heard or you’ve experienced yourself, it is quite difficult to find a good apartment at an affordable price in Hamburg, especially if you want to rent it for a longer time. The rents have gone up quite a lot during the past few years and the demand is quite high as well. So you not only have to be ready to pay a lot for an apartment, but also expect that there will be a lot of other candidates who will compete with you for the same apartment.

One way to go is to hire a real estate agent, in which case you have to pay a commission on the apartment. I cannot tell you a lot about this option, because I personally don’t have any experience with it, but I guess if you want and can afford to pay the commission, this would be the easiest and most relaxed way to find an apartment.
 

I’ve been living in Germany for seven years now and during this time I have lived in 5 different apartments (2 in Berlin and 3 in Hamburg). What I like to do when I move to a new city, is to first rent a temporary apartment for only 2 or 3 months. This is called “Zwischenmiete” in Germany. This would also be a great option for people who want to stay in the city only for a few months. 
 

Most of the temporary apartments, that are offered, are already furnished and have everything that you need for everyday life. Additional costs for water, heating, internet etc. are usually included in the price, so you don’t have to worry about anything. That way you will have 2 or 3 months to find a nice apartment, which would be a more permanent option and enough time to furnish it and move in.
 

Another advantage is that you can rent the temporary apartment without having to be in the city. Usually you can make an agreement with the person renting the apartment to reserve it for you if you pay first month’s rent (or part of it) in advance and then you can sign the official document when you arrive in the city and they give you the keys to the apartment. Of course this can be a bit risky, because you don’t really know the other person, but I had very positive experience until now and I liked the fact that I didn’t have to worry where I will stay the first few days.

You can find offers for temporary apartments at the following websites: 

• http://www.zwischenmiete.de/ 
• http://www.studenten-wg.de/zwischenmiete.html
• http://kleinanzeigen.ebay.de/ (Immobilien -> Auf Zeit &WG) 
• http://www.immobilienscout24.de/ (Wohnen auf Zeit) 

All of the web sites are in German, but you can use Google Translate to translate the web site in your language. When I first came to Germany I couldn’t speak German, so I contacted several people who were renting an apartment per Email in English and most of them could speak English.

After you’ve arrived in Germany and settled down, you can start to search for a more permanent accommodation. My advice for you would be to ask all the people that you know or met in the city. That is how I found 3 of the 5 apartments that I rented. There are a lot of people that want to change apartments and because of the standard necessary 3 month notice, they need to find a new tenant otherwise they need to pay for those months. In these cases most of the people first ask around if anybody is interested before they put an ad on the web sites. If you manage to find such an apartment, you will have the advantage that there will probably be only a couple of other candidates for the apartment and you won’t need to pay any provision. 

If you cannot find an apartment through friends or acquaintances, you can also search for an apartment at the numerous websites online. Here are a couple of websites that I have found quite useful:

• http://www.immobilienscout24.de/
• http://www.immonet.de/
• http://www.immowelt.de/
• http://www.studenten-wg.de/ (Wohnung Hamburg) 

If you are not interested in renting a whole apartment for yourself than maybe apartment sharing is a better choice for you. Flat sharing is called “Wohngemeinschaft” (or WG) in Germany. And a lot of people live in shared apartments. The advantage are that you won’t feel so alone in a new city and you will probably pay less because you only pay for one room and you use the living room, kitchen and bathroom together with the other tenants. I lived for one year in a WG with 3 other people in Hamburg and had a lot of fun during that time. For me one year was enough. Afterwards I rented my own apartment, but every person is different. If you are interested in a shared apartments you can find offers on the following web site:

http://www.studenten-wg.de/ (Hamburg WG) 

Happy apartment hunting!