Right now, for whatever reason, everyone and their cousin is moving to Berlin.
Apartments are in high demand, competition is fierce and supply is limited.
Oh so, so limited.
But that’s not even the biggest challenge.
What makes you different from all the other sublessees today?
Sublessor no. 1
The biggest challenge for moving to Berlin right now, is being accepted for an apartment.
That’s right. It’s not the exhausting apartment search, the delayed response time from tenants, or the recent surge in apartment pricing. It’s not the apartment application process or the fact that long-term apartments contracts are as mythical as Big Foot. [You hear they exist, but no one ever sees them type-thing.] No, the biggest challenge right now for moving to Berlin is passing the sublessor/sublessee compatibility quiz that comes with every [short-term] apartment visit.
You read right.
To find a short-term rental in Berlin, it isn’t enough to over-qualify on paper. Nor is it enough to have the finances and references to back you up. To be enough, you have to be compatible. Your personality has to match the renter’s. And, the renter has to like you more than any of the other applicants. This is how you become the chosen one.
Basically, it’s a pageant contest.
Why should you win this apartment?
sublessor no. 2
How it works
When subletting an apartment in Berlin, the sublessor receives up to 50 or more inquiries about their location.
If you are one of the lucky few to get a response, you’ll still be only one of the 15-20 potential candidates visiting the place. Which isn’t really that much. (I’ve heard of some sublessors accepting up to 50 visitations searching for that perfect match.) Once this initial phase of communication has been completed, you’re able to move onto the next step.
In the next step, there is an apartment viewing. That apartment viewing has a deadline.
When that deadline has been made, the viewings have finished, and the sublessor makes a decision based on which candidate they matched with the best.
It’s kind of like speed-dating, for apartments.
BING!
The take-away: overcoming Berlin’s biggest challenge
If you want to live in Berlin, you really have to sell yourself at your apartment visits.
No one tells you, but you should be providing answers to those popular pageant questions at all of your apartment visitations. Whether those questions are asked or not. Because the better you can make yourself look, the more likely it is to score an apartment.
And believe me when I say, this process takes months (and months), so better start preparing.
For more information on Berlin apartment searching or the difficulties you face when moving to Berlin, check out my latest post 6 Things You Should Really Know Before Moving To Berlin.
