Finding an apartment in a foreign country when you’re not there may seem like a daunting task, but with the Internet it’s pretty easy. Once I decided to make the move, I immediately went to Craigslist Buenos Aires to see what apartments were available. I had some specific requirements – furnished, located in Palermo Soho, accepts dogs, has some outdoor space, and is as roomy as possible. Luckily, Craigslist lets you search and sort by apartment features and area. In addition, since my Spanish is very basic, it’s helpful that many of the ads are in English. If you’re fluent in Spanish, you probably have a number of other options available to you that I did not.
Craigslist has both owners and real estate brokers who post ads. In many cases, the real estate brokers will charge a fee for finding an apartment which is usually one month’s rent. This is a question you should ask up front if it is not specified in the ad. Foreigners will also be charge a much higher rate than locals. This is especially for short-term, furnished rentals. Anyhow, I was willing to pay a bit more for the first six months so that I could find a clean, safe place and learn my way around. I figured I could move after the first six months and find a better place if we had to.
Luckily, on the first day of searching, I found an apartment that looked perfect. It was in Palermo Soho, was large, and while it did not have outdoor space, had an indoor pool! The owner was listing it and there was no fee, plus his English was very good so it was easy to email back and forth. He sent over photos of the apartment:
It looked great! It was a bit more than I wanted to spend, but I didn’t want any problems, so I decided it made sense to do it for the first six months at least. I sent over the U.S. $510 deposit.