FINDING AN ACCOMMODATION – Short term stay and avoid scamming!

Hello guys! 🤗

After a (quick) introduction to myself, here is my story in finding an accommodation for a SHORT TERM. I’ve struggled guys, for real.

I’ve visited many many (many) websites, I’ve even paid for one! (Kamernet) It did not help me at all, I did not find anything on these website, because every rental contracts were for at least a year.

I could find 2 or 3 rooms on one website though, but it was unfurnished and a bit over my budget (400 to 600€ per month).

I’ve started to join 3 or 4 Facebook groups and literally sent messages to everyone, and activated the notification to receive every single new post.

Luckily, I have found a room and I would never ever thanks Marika enough for letting me sub-rentingrenting her room.

My room is a student room, and I’m sharing the appartment with 3 other students. The rent is even lower than the budget I’ve settled! It’s 20 min walk from SBE (and yes I am going to walk! Playing Pokemon Go makes it so much funnier). My room is 22 meters square and I have everything I need!

I’ve found this room only few weeks before arriving in Maastricht.

I did a Skype visit as I was on holidaysI did not have much options! And fortunately, everything went well. I was pretty anxious about that because I’ve been scammed in Australia… and quite a big amount of money…

Here are some of my tips to recognize it and avoid it!

From my experience, first of all the room / apparement has an appealing price for its location.

Scammers send you very long messages, not always making a lot of sense…

They explain you the reason why you can’t visit the room… Never accept a room you can’t visit, you need at least to see it through Skype so you know it’s real!

They ask for a high deposit, usually the deposit is plus or less 1 month rent, up to 2 months for long rent BUT NO MORE.

To sum up, be extremely careful with scamming, I know it is truly hard to find short term accommodation but don’t be too seduced by too appealing offers…

Your best chance are certainly Facebook groups, by subrenting someone else’s rent because (s)he is going away for an exchange as well or for an internship!

Good luck ✨🔑🚪