Finding an apartment is ridiculously hard in France. David and I have been searching for a few months now and everything is either too expensive, too small or too far away from public transportation. He only has a CDD (short-term work contract) and I’m unemployed. We were approved for Loca-Pass, but some landlords won’t accept it because they prefer a human co-signer (preferably a family member) instead of a business. Most apartments are rented through agencies instead of directly through the landlords, and they charge a few hundred euros for their “services.” We have a few friends who want to leave their apartments, but the problem is that they need to find new apartments too before they can move.
France has a problem with housing (not just affordable housing, but housing in general). I heard a few months ago on the news that there is a shortage of one million housing units. This does not mean that one million people are looking for housing. This means that there is no housing for one million families or couples or anyone else who could live together in an apartment or house.
The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment where I live runs more than 650 € ($873) a month, with no or few utilities included. I have no idea how single people survive here. That’s about the same price as my friend’s one-bedroom apartment in LA. In comparison, my one-bedroom apartment in Michigan was only $500 a month (372 €).
