Apartment Search in Berlin

My experience of "How to find an apartment in Berlin?"

I applied jobs all over Germany and visited different cities for interviews. And one of these interviews was also in Berlin. I was secretly wishing for finding a job in Berlin and therefore was really excited to attend the interview.

Starting the apartment search

After I got the confirmation of my job in an IT company in Berlin I immediately started looking for an apartment in Berlin and started searching on the following websites

• www.wg-gesucht.de
• http://www.studenten-wg.de
• www.immobilienscout24.de
• www.scout24.com
• http://www.immonet.de/
• Many facebook groups

As I was still finishing my student life I was more interested to find a room (Zimmer) in a wohngemeinschaft (Students Dorm) and therefore I started my search on WG gesucht websites. After a lot of search and message sending I finally got a reply from one girl (Now my really good friend) that she is willing to interview me on skype in order to check that I am a real person (and not a robot).

Tips for Writing Message to Renters

The important thing to notice here that in my experience, the message you send to people who are renting the apartment works more or less like a cover letter for your application. You somehow need to show that you are a serious person and you are going to pay the rent in time every month but you also need to show your human side that you like to also interact with people and would like to sometimes drink coffee together if there comes an opportunity. 

However, I read on internet that people suggest that you should write in your application how passionate you are towards life and how much you like to go out and party and how much awesome you would be as a wg partner, I find it all bullshit. My advice is that you show your human side and you show that you are a sincere person who is going to pay the rent on time. In addition you can explain about your future daily life activity in Berlin and you talk about your timings of office or job and how often your friends might visit you at home. 

Of course you are a person who would at least once a week go to the club and sometimes come really late at night. But this information would not bring you any benefit but rather portray your picture more like a hipster who has no idea of his/her life. Always remember that people don't want to rent their apartment rooms to people who are going to be a disturbance for all other apartment residents. So show that you are responsible and sensible person. 

So, after my skype interview, I got an offer to rent the apartment only for 2 months as that was the intended duration of renting the apartment from the girl. So I was happy. The important point to notice here is that the papers needed to rent a room in an apartment (WG) can be different compared to the renting a fully 2-3 room apartment as a main tenant. (Hauptmieter). So finally I came to Berlin and started my job here. 

Searching for apartment as Hauptmieter

As soon as I came to berlin and started my job I started to look for my next apartment and started to send more and more applications and then hit me the hard reality. It was not easy to find and apartment in Berlin and to have an apartment you need some papers which were not known to me at all. 

Here is a list of papers which most people need to find an apartment: 

Schufaauskunft

This is a document which is your credit record maintained by financial organizations such as Banks for every person who lives in Germany. And if you have never heard of it but you live in Germany, it exists for you also, you just don't know about it. 

How to get your Schufaauskunft? 

To get your Schufa you have two options: 

1. You download a form from here. and send it to the given address and you will received your schufa by post in 3 to 4 weeks. (Yes it is really slow and it sucks)
   Note: you can get the free schufa like this only ONCE a year and most apartment renters want a Schufa not older than 2 months. So be careful.
2. You can directly download it from the website called: https://www.immobilienscout24.de/
   If you want to download it immediately you have to pay something like 29 euros. 

Unbefristet Werkvertrag (Unlimited Work Contract) 

The unlimited work contract is for the purpose of ensuring that you earn enough to pay the rent and that you have a stable income.
Note: Unlimited work contract sometimes comes with the ProbeZeit (Probation Period) and many renters don't consider probation period as permanent job. 

Mietschuldenfreiheitsbescheinigung

This is a document which you are supposed to get from your last renter of the apartment. For students it might be from the studentenwerk or studentenwohnheim department. If you have never heard of it it is ok. You need to ask for this from your last apartment rental organization. 

Last three months salary slips. 

Again, this is a proof of your enough income. Not the catch here is that if you are a new person starting your job in a new city. You are not going to have three salary slips in the beginning. And that was also my case. And it sucks. 

Copy of Ausweis or Passport

Everybody has atleast one of them. 

After looking for many many apartments for 2 months I didn't manage to find an apartment for myself. Although I did get some situations where I thoguht may be I got it but all was just my expectations and nothing else. Every time I went to see an apartment, sometimes there were as much as 32 couples who wanted to take the apartment and in this competition I didn't stand a chance. Over the time I realized that people who spoke good german had atleast a little bit more opportunities to talk to the agents directly but unfortunately I didn't have these skills. 

How I found my apartment

It might sound funny but I couldn't find a flat for me until the end of 2 months and once I was talking to my old friend (who lives in Germany) about this and suddenly he told me that he has a cousin who works in an agency but the problem was she was working in Frankfurt and I was searching for apartment in Berlin. 

But anyways I asked him to check with her if they also work for Berlin flats. 

And to my surprise Yes they were working also in Berlin and finally I could get the contract for the apartment through VITAMIN B (Beziehung). The agency told me the apartment is not painted and I have to wait until 2 weeks but I didn't have time and hence I ended up renting it without the painting and later I painted the walls myself. But the Agency was really good and they told me that I would get 1.5 Month of Kaltmiete for painting my flat. Which I found was awesome. 

So dear reader, if you find yourself in a similar situation and would like to ask me something or share something here. Please write me in the comment and I would reply you with more information.