Moving to Paris

Jayo_M

I've been offered an internship with Eurocopter, in La Courneuve just outside Paris. I've been advised not to stay in La Courneuve, but to check out places on RER Line B or near any subway station.

Now, I pretty much have zero conversational French and will have to live off a very small wage. I've looked at some rental sites, but they generally focus on the Paris city centre where the prices per month for a bedsit is a bit absurd. So, I'm looking for some advice on where to look for a place to stay, any websites to look at and any other advice for living in Paris is general!

Thanks for any help!

Civilian_Target

The best solution is to ask Eurocopter. Most french companies have an internal buy-and-sell message board that includes accommodation for rent. That is most likely to have the best offers.

In English, there's angloinfo. It's handy for a few weeks of black-market rental when you arrive. Craigslist or Couchsurfing.org can be helpful too.

In French, there are many more options. Not much for free though, except leboncoin.fr. If you're looking for house sharing (which I recommend, otherwise you'll never learn french!), the daddy is appartager.fr. But, it costs about €30 to sign up. And don't forget word of mouth, there are loads of rich Irish people with apartments in France to rent!

Finally, you'll be shocked how expensive rent is in Paris. 500 euros a month would be a good price for a habitable 20m² studio in the 20th arrondisement!

Jayo_M

Believe me, I'm already shocked! My brother is moving over too, so hopefully we'll be able to get somewhere decent between us.

I got on to Eurocopter already, but not much luck. I've been keeping an eye on craigslist, thought I found a good place but ran the 'owners' IP address through the net and turns out she's located in Lagos, Nigeria :-p Thanks for the other links! I'll try get onto appartager.fr. I'm getting worried now about whether I will be able to afford to live in Paris considering my wage. I'll be earning between 700-1000 a month and get a grant of about two grand. I'm trying to put some money away from my job here, but it tends to build up slowly with rent and bills. Do you have any idea on if I can live relatively comfortably on that? Plus I still have to pay two more months rent on this place while I'm there!

mikedragon32

Moved from Indy travel

Jayo_M

Whoops, sorry, was looking through the forums for the best place to put this and missed this section completely!