Paris Guide for the Indian in Paris

Hello IIP,

Great to find this forum and thank you for keeping it active.

We (me, my wife and 10-month daughter) will be moving from USA to Paris in May and have many questions. Would appreciate your response to help us move in:

1. How can we find apartments? We dont event know where to begin looking and since we dont speak French, we are totally lost.

2. What neighborhoods should we consider to rent an apartment - we want something safe and convinient (connectivity to transportation).

3. What neighborhoods do ex-pats live? Would be great to make new friends who can speak english. I'm Indian and my wife is Asian.

4. How much would an unfurnished 2 bedroom cost in good neighborhoods?


Looking forward to connecting with the community in Paris!

Hi,

Its not that bad if you dont know french. Its a challange but one can survive.
There are lots of tips from India on this site answering your questions.

Also http://paris.angloinfo.com/ is of great help

all the best
arnab

Hi there Pepper,

As for English websites, here are a few to start looking for an apartment in Paris: http://www.my-apartment-in-paris.com/ www.parisattitude.com/ www.paristay.com/

As per my understanding, these sites cater to non-French speaking people assuming that most of them are coming to Paris for holiday or short or long term stay for leisure and propose mostly chic areas at exorbitant prices.

Since you are moving to Paris, I assume that you already have a staying arrangement/ hotel for a few weeks till you zero in on a place to live in. While you are here, check out various rental agencies in your hotel's neighbourhood (Century 21 etc.) Paris has lots of rental, estate agents! Almost all of them have printed booklets available at their entrance, just pick a few up from different agencies to get an idea of the kind of places that you like and their prices. That should help you narrow down your choices instead of going through a distance-sales as in through some website.

However, if you are still interested, with some basic French, you could manage to widen your choices with: www.seloger.com www.avendrealouer.fr www.paruvendu.fr www.lodgis.com/fr/ www.pap.fr www.appartement-a-louer-paris.com

As far as transportation is concerned, as long as you are in Paris, there is absoltely no issue with metro stations accessible at close distances (hardly 5 or max 10 min walk). In addition, there are buses, trams, sub-urban trains and even bicycles on rent 14th, 15th, 16th are good neighbourhoods. Mostly, its best to visit any neighbourhood without having any pre-conceived ideas and you will yourself get the feel as to its attractiveness or not. A generalization may inflate your expectations (and from estate agents' view, budget too )

Ex-pats are scattered and you can't find any particular area with a concentration of ex-pats or even Indians (except in sub-urban Boulogne with Indian embassy crowd or Bobigny with Punjabis). However, no matter where you are, if you are friendly (and your neighbours' too), mixing around won't be a problem though with my experience, I find that being self sufficient in the beginning and later widening the circle with various mutual interest groups is most beneficial.

Prices vary according to the location. It could be from 1200-2000 Euros.

All the best !