Apartment Hunting in Spain

Looking for an apartment in Spain officially sucks.  It was the most frustrating, annoying, stressful experience I’ve had so far.  I cried at least twice during the whole process and stress-ate my weight in ice cream (mmm…ice cream).

I began my search online.  I created a profile on easypiso.com, looking for people renting out a single room.  I met some very kind people, but the pisos (flats) I was finding were all on the other side of the river (the Guadalquivir River) and the more I traveled to that side, the more I realized I wanted to live right in the city center on the other side.  

So, I started my search anew.  I looked and looked and looked, and almost went with a smallish place near the Plaza de Torros (bull-fighting arena), but ended up saying no to that one too after deciding to room with another girl from my program, Erin.

The first apartment Erin and I looked at together seemed perfect.  It had just been renovated, it had an oven (surprisingly uncommon here), and it was in a superb location, very near the cathedral.  We told the owner that we’d need to think about it and went to see a few more flats.  We kept comparing everything to that very nice one, so we called the owner and toured the flat one more time before saying we’d take it.

Well, once we really started getting down to the nitty gritty, the lady scared us off.  She was very, uh, particular.  Since she’d just re-done the place, she was a little protective and had some rules.  These rules included: the terrace can only be used for tending laundry and perhaps reading a book, but nothing else (not even some quiet, conservatively-dressed yoga); nothing can be stuck to the walls, not even using sticky-tack; since we’d be sharing the flat with 2 other roommates, we would be assigned a shelf on the unit in the family room (to avoid fighting), and can only put a few things on our assigned shelf (so as not to overload it); no parties are allowed in the flat (didn’t want any anyway); it is compulsory to have a cleaning lady in to clean the common areas at least once every month; and, the kicker, absolutely no overnight guests are permitted…as in, we could be evicted if a friend slept on our couch.  Yeah.  Too much.  We said no.

So…. We kept looking and looking and looking.  We met a pushy realtor, a friendly realtor, a nice girl from Manchester, England, a snobby language assistant back for her 2^nd year, and a few other colorful characters along the way.  We saw rooms that would rival Harry Potter’s cupboard under the stairs for space and comfort, walked down hallways fit for horror movies, and sat on more springy/janky sofas than I care to count.  Finally, we narrowed our choices to a 4-bedroom flat and a 2-bedroom flat in Alfalfa (smack-dab in the city center) and just needed to decide between them.

The Pros and Cons:

Positives to the 4-bedroom: Great location, big, lots of light, nice-sized kitchen, plenty of bathrooms, adequately furnished, good décor, sane owner.

Negatives to the 4-bedroom: We’re 2 not 4, noise (located on THE busiest street for nightlife…. It’s packed from about 12/1 AM ‘til all hours… every night), no air conditioning, no oven, no dishwasher.

Positives to the 2-bedroom: Great location, big, everything being cleaned and re-painted, getting a new sofa, nice realtor, ground floor, double beds, quiet, no need to look for 2 more roommates.

Negatives to the 2-bedroom: Only 2 windows (leaving 1 bedroom without one), no air conditioning, no oven, smallish kitchen, no closet in 1 bedroom, the “wall” splitting the bedrooms was not a real wall, the realtor would charge a commission equal to 1 month’s rent (yikes!)

After weighing the pros and cons, we decided to go for the 4-bedroom flat.  The only problem… we were still only 2, not 4.  So, we told the owner that we’d love to take it if we could find 2 roommates and to let us know if she found 2 people who needed another pair. 

Meanwhile, we stopped by Roommates Sevilla, a company that helps students/people like us find shared flats in Sevilla, and started the searching process with them.  After looking at one very scary place in Triana (scary, as in dirty, not scary, as in dangerous), we got a phone call from the landlord of the 4-bedroom Alfalfa apartment and she told us that there were 2 guys also interested in the piso.  YES!

We got in contact with the 2 guys and were able to meet them at the apartment a few days later.  We met, toured the flat one more time, and then, agreed to take it.  Hooray!  We found a place to live!  We signed the next day and moved in last Wednesday, September 26th.

So, my roommates include Erin, a writer/actress/literature buff/semi-geek (geek in the most awesome sense of the word… we both geek out over Dr. Who, Harry Potter, books, Star Wars…I’ll not go on)/awesome, beautiful young lady from Michigan (her 1 flaw is that she went to U of M… ugh), Giacomo, a 20-year-old ERASMUS student (exchange student) from Rome, Italy, studying economics, and Martin, a 25-year-old ERASMUS student from Paris, France, studying Pharmacology.  They’re all pretty cool and we’ve been getting along very well so far.

Last weekend, Erin, Martin, and I even went to IKEA together to buy a few things to make our place more like home.  Erin and I both ended up buying some apple-cinnamon candles that smell so much like home that we could not pass them up. J  They smell like apple orchards/apple cider/hay-rides to pick out pumpkins/fall/happiness.  They are fantastic.

But I digress… the point is, we’ve really made the apartment like home and it’s very nice.

So, in the end, the apartment hunting had a happy ending.  It was very stressful and frustrating during the search, but it all turned out ok.

I'll post pictures later. :)