throwaway_paris

> It's in large part (almost entirely?) because the laws make it extremely difficult to evict a tenant.

I was given that explanation by at least one letting agent, but I don't believe it because I was turned down repeatedly even though I told all the agents that my employer offered to be my guarantor. That means they would have to pay rent if I didn't.

In fact, my employer is currently my guarantor, for the apartment I finally rented. My boss had to sign a contract that in the event that I stay in the house without paying rent the company will pay the rent for one year. I'm pretty sure that also includes any costs for repairs if required. That should pretty much take care of all the risk there could possibly be in renting to me. And yet, nobody would rent to me.

So the risk is not the problem. The letting agent who gave me the apartment I'm renting commented that it's just too much hassle letting to someone like me, who doesn't have all their documentation in their "dossier de locateur". It really looks like the only reason nobody wanted to let to me was that they don't give a shit whether I find a house or not and they have plenty of takers. As the French say, ils ce foutent de ma geule.

Thanks. Well, I didn't know that. I had thought, when I finally moved here, that the French would have free energy on demand like in Star Trek, what with all the nuclear stations. I guess not.

I like the French. It's true there's mad amounts of process and bureaucracy everywhere and as usual, none of it works. I don't think it's really worse than in other places, c'est seulement que les Français aiment grogner plus que les autres. C'est Français ca, grogner :)

Btw, je parle bien Français alors je me demande si sa serait pas encore pire si je cherchais un appart en Anglais. Aie.

That makes some sense, but from my point of view my housing situation is not ideal, either: the apartment I'm renting is half the size and twice the money of what I was renting before, although I didn't live at a capital city then.

I understand your skepticism, I myself find it very hard to believe I couldn't find a place to stay in Paris.

Btw, if you're thinking of "other factors" like something dodgy about my personality, there aren't any. If there was something about me so dodgy that nobody wanted to rent to me, it would affect my ability to be employed, first. And yet I got an offer from the first startup to which I applied in Paris, so it can't be that.

Perhaps the recent immigrants you spoke with were comfortable with less ... formal? ways of renting? For example, searching for "why so hard to rent in Paris foreigner" on duckduckgo, I find this account of similar difficulties as mine:

https://howtobecomeparisian.com/2020/04/13/the-struggle-of-f...

<< I arrived in Paris thinking it would be easy to find a place to live, and the end result ended up being years of dodgy landlords, questionable agencies, and a string of short-term leases which made me feel like I always had to be ready to pack up at a moment’s notice. >>

I'm guessing there are many people living in similar precarious accommodation. I didn't want that, so I guess I played on hard mode to begin with. But the point is that the hard mode is hard, and I'm not playing some game, I'm just trying to rent a place to stay and work in a European capital. It shouldn't be hard.

I moved to Paris to start a new job recently, and the housing situation sucks so much.

The prices in Paris are fairly high, 1000€ for a 30m² flat. But that's the relatively small heart of "Paris intra muros", excluding the "banlieues" (suburbs) which are cheaper and 30 minutes to an hour with the Métro (or the RER). That doesn't sound more unaffordable than London, not on a tech salary and colleagues have told me co-habitation is not a thing here (whereas most of my friends and colleagues in London lived in shared flats, for example).

What makes Paris impossible to rent in, is the absolutely insane demand for housing that frees real estate agents to do whatever the fuck they please. I spent three weeks calling every day, multiple agencies, only to be told by each and every one of them that they wouldn't let to me because I am a salaried worker in a trial period ("salarié en periode d' essaie", a three-month trial period mandated by French law). Even with my company offering to be my guarantor (which means they would shoulder all the risk of rent arrears) they would not let to me. Not one. My contacts list is still full of numbers of "immobiliers" (real estate agencies), I know 80% of the agencies and I have masochistic fun pointing them out when I pass outside them with friends. Not one of them would let to me. Not. One!

That's without all the absolutely insane amount of documentation they require (three months of recent rent receipts, proof of having paid taxes in France in the last year, etc) which you won't have if you haven't already lived and worked in France for a while, and the complete bollocks demand of earning three times the rent in salary, and being able to afford two times the rent in advance (as a guarantee; we'll see if I get mine back). But I think that's all par for the course in big cities.

In the end I was only able to find an apartment because an estate agent who's friends with my boss did me a favor. And even he wouldn't talk to me until I barged into his office. So I got 15 m² with a 3m² bathroom with no sink (there's a 5lt washing machine in its place) and a "kitchen corner" that's barely enough to make breakfast cereals, all for the price of 720€.

For the record, I'm an EU citizen and I have a doctorate in a tech subject. My French colleagues have shared similar rental horror stories. I have no idea how people manage who are worse off financially, or come from outside the EU.

tl;dr: no, you don't want the housing situation in your city to be like that in Paris.