How To Find Apartments In Spain

Your flight is booked, your bags are packed, and you are counting down the days until you land in Spain! There is just one minor detail that you now need to stress over, where are you going to live? Whether you are looking to rent a whole apartment or an individual room, don’t fret — you have options!

Many people want to have their accommodation booked before they land in order to have some peace of mind. However, I urge you not to book anything long-term before you arrive at your destination in Spain. Simply book an Airbnb for 2 weeks in order to settle into your new home and explore where exactly you would like to live long-term. Here are my 3 reasons why you should not book long-term accommodation before you land:

Wide-angle lens + Photoshop = extremely deceptive photos. It is actually impressive how deceptive apartment photos can be. I can’t tell you how many times I went to view an apartment and thought I was at the wrong place because the listing photos looked NOTHING like the apartment I was standing in. So if you decide to trust the photos you see online and not view the apartment first, you may be VERY disappointed.
Scams on scams on scams. Scamming tourists who are looking for accommodation in European cities is a full-blown business. I had a few people try to scam me when I responded to their listings to schedule a viewing. Almost every time the scammers say that they are out of the country and in order to schedule a viewing you have to send a deposit first. But don’t worry, the deposit will be returned to you if you decide not to book the apartment. HOW DOES THAT EVEN MAKE SENSE?
You need to know the area you are living in. Like anywhere in the world, there will be unsafe areas of a city that you will want to avoid living in at all costs. Although the area may be dodgy there still may be really nice and new apartments there. That was the case in Barcelona, in some of the unsafest areas there were the nicest apartment listings and they were always available because nobody wanted to live there. If I didn’t know the area at all and decided to book the apartment based on the photos, I probably would have gotten robbed every other night living there.

With the above in mind, here are four ways I personally was able to find great housing in Spain:

Facebook Groups

Ideal for: Rooms + Apartments

Facebook groups are the golden jewel of living abroad. Not only are they great to find housing, but they are also great for meeting people and finding events in your city. Simply search “Barcelona Housing” or “Barcelona Apartments” and you will find a plethora of groups to join with potential new roomies for you! You can use this tactic for any city you move to, not only Spain.

Within the groups, you will find postings from people looking to fill a room in their house/apartment or even some agencies will post their new listings in the group as well. Just be sure to vet the listing and the person who posted it. Good samaritans will also share names/profiles of people who are trying to scam others so you can avoid them too.

Idealista

Ideal for: Rooms + Apartments

This was the website I used throughout my apartment hunt in Barcelona and even in Lisbon. It is really easy to use and search exactly what you are looking for. You can limit your search to certain areas of a city, full apartments or only rooms, furnished or unfurnished, square footage, amenities, etc.

However, this is the website that people also tried to scam me through. You just need to have your wits about you and trust your gut. With each person who tried to scam me, other people reported them to Idealista and their ads were removed. Another all caps reminder for you: NEVER SEND A DEPOSIT BEFORE VIEWING THE APARTMENT

One other thing to keep in mind with this website is that a lot of agencies post their listings here. You will know if the listing is from an agency because it will have their logo somewhere in the ad. As with anywhere in the world, if you decide to rent through an agency you will have to pay an agency fee (typically 1-month rent). If you choose to rent from an individual landlord/owner you obviously won’t have to pay an agency fee. No matter who you rent from, whether it is an individual or an agency, you will likely have to pay 2 months rent as a security deposit upfront (along with your first month’s rent). In Spain, I chose to rent both of my apartments through an agency after hearing a number of nightmare landlord stories where renters never received their deposits back.

Badi App

Ideal for: Rooms

This app has become really popular in Spain and is actually what my boyfriend, Afonso, used to find a short-term room in Barcelona. Basically, people post photos of the rooms they have available in their apartment as well as information about themselves and what they are looking for in a roommate. You can message them to schedule a viewing of the room and see if you click as roomies!

Spotahome

Ideal for: Rooms + Apartments

This is another really great website that I used throughout my apartment search in Barcelona. The only downside of this app is that you are unable to schedule viewings of the apartments you are interested in. I know I said this is a big “no-no” but there is a workaround to this. This website sends their employees to (typically) each apartment to vet the space so you don’t have to. If an employee has not visited the apartment and approved it then they will include that information in the listing. Another good thing about this is that not only do you get to see photos of the apartment, but the Spotahome employees also upload video tours of the space too which are really accurate.

These four websites/apps are what I personally used to find housing in Spain, although there are definitely a lot more! Have you tried to find housing in Spain? Let me know how you went about it!