Hi everyone:
Two friends and I are moving to Madrid in March 2002. We would like to rent an apartment, but we are only planning to stay for 4 months. Is it possible to rent an apartment in Spain on a month-to-month basis? Or do most landlords require a six month or year lease? Also, if anyone has personal experience staying at a reasonably priced apart-hotel, I would love to hear from you.
Thanks in advance for any information.

Hi carleen, jer here.

Hmmmmmm... a tall order even for me

All of my experience tells me that you will have a very hard time finding a reasonably priced and nice place for only 4 months if you tell the owner that that is the case.

I know of one person who is here for 4 months but he ended up paying a huge amount in rent due to the fact that it was such a short contract. So, if money is no object, there will be fewer problems (isn't that always the way it goes).

Although things will lighten up and apt. hunting will be easier after the Euro kicks in in Jan. 2002, almost all apt. owners will require a year minimum and first months rent plus a 1 month deposit.

I am not advocating it but many people lie to the owners and say they will be here a year, only to leave sooner. The bad thing is that in this case you would lose your months deposit for breaking the contract.

You can check out my apt. hunting resources at www.multimadrid.com/mm_interactive/links/apts.htm

Being 3, if you want to live together, you will need to find an entire apt. since finding an apt. share with 3 available rooms is VERY difficul to say the least.

Being American will also make things harder since you are not part of the European Union and do not have what tey call a "nomina" ("payslip") here that proves you have money coming in monthly. Many apt. owners ask for this in order to rent you the place and are very stubborn on the subject, no matter how much money you can prove that you have in a bank account stateside. The "nomina" thing is the single biggest problem in finding an apt. here

If one of you 3 has an apt. in the U.S.A., another option could be to do an apt. swap. This is increasingly popular and consists of your exchanging places for a period of time with someone who has a place in Madrid. You may want to place an ad in the InMadrid (an excellent local newspaper here in English) classifieds, online at www.in-madrid.com , no matter what you decide to do.

Also, there is a new organization here called Welcome to Madrid (www.welcometomadrid.org) that can help you settle in here and even find an apt. and job if you want. It is run by a guy named Donald and he is very eager to help visitors to Madrid, drop him a line if you like.

Hope this helps!

Saludos,
jer...

Just as a note, I heard that the Euro did not go into effect until July 1, 2002. Is that true?

Hey Ben, your info is somewhat correct. The Euro will be the official monitary unit of the EU starting on Jan. 1st, 2001 and there is a 6 month period from that date until July 1st during which the Euro will co-exist with the peseta, giving people time to get used to the new money and also to change over all their pesetas to Euros.

So, while the Euro is officialy to be born on the 1st of January, the 1st of July serves as a date when the peseta will be worthless and only the Euro will be accepted in Spain.

Asd far as I can tell, each or the 11 Euro countries have their own changover timeline and you can see it all at the official Euro website online at www.euro.ecb.int .

I am also working on a "Spain Money Matters" page at www.multimadrid.com/practical_info/spain_money.htm

Hope you like it.

Saludos,
jer...

Hi Jer:
Wow, thanks so much for the info! I've been posting this question all over, and this was the first useful response I've seen. Sounds like it will be more difficult that we had envisioned. Unfortunately, none of us are keeping our apartments here in the US, since we are all going to be gone for a year (Madrid is just the beginning of our round-the-world trip.) So apartment swapping is out. But I will definitely check out welcometomadrid.org. And it sounds like we will have better luck staying at a long-term hostel of some sort. Which raises a new question:
Does anybody know of a good hostel in Madrid that has a kitchen for the guests to use? I know that a lot of the small hostels in Madrid have kitchens, because the owner often lives there. Is it commonplace for visitors to have kitchen priveleges?

Hi Carleen, glad I could help.

Yes, it will be a bit harder to find a place but stik with it and things will work out.

Aaaahhhh, I forgot, aside from www.welcometomadrid.org, there is another room finding service here,their website is at www.roommadrid.arrakis.es. You might want to take a look but they are much more expensive than the folks at www.welcometomadrid.org.

Check out the banner at the bottom of this page. It is from one of my sponsors, "the funhouse", you can click on it and go to their website where you can visit the hostal online. They are well located, have a youthful hip image and a fully equiped kitchen for use by their guests.

Write them with any other questions and please let them know you saw them on multimadrid.com, it is good for the sponsorship

Surely there are other hostels in the city that also offer a shared kitchen (although not many) but right now
"the funhouse" is the only one that comes to mind.

Saludos,
jer...