Few Choices on Pricey Expat Rental Market
Laying the groundwork for the move to Moscow, Angela Baxter had two hours to look at three apartments, and then she had to fly back home.
“All of the landlords said their wives had decorated the places, and I wondered if they had all married the same woman,” Baxter said during a seminar hosted by the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce called “Survival Guide for Expats in Russia 2008.”
After hurriedly looking at the places, she chose the first one and returned to talk to the owner. “I didn’t have much time, so I went in, told him how much wiggle room I had to work with and left,” said Baxter, the director of business development at Berlitz.
The realtor later told her that the apartment she thought she had secured had been let out to someone else.
“They offered you wine and candy, and you just negotiated and walked away — they didn’t think you were serious,” the real estate agent later told her.
From rental prices jacked up midcontract to landlords refusing to help with burst pipes, horror stories abound of expatriate apartment rentals gone wrong.
But before you can even consider the particular joys of living in a Russian apartment, you’ll have to find a place to call home, or at least someone to find it for you. The city’s booming population and ever spiraling prices, however, are a problem real estate companies can help navigate, but not mitigate.
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Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 5:51 pm under