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Renting here is quite easy if you have the right look or the right salary (like everywhere), first you need to know where you want to live. There are obviosly areas that cost more and a first floor apartment isn't as expensive as a top floor with balcony. For the areas please see "the areas". It's best to go through an estate agent if you can, people who rent by themselves have a habit of putting the rent up, the agencies keep them, usually, quite low. There are an enourmous amount of estate agents around Marseille, if you want a place in the middle of town, around the old port then you should seriously look on the Panier side. You may not want to live in the panier itself but the area is not expensive and there's alot of developpement going on.

A few Marseille estate agents have their own Internet sites.
Immobilière de la Bourse, a nice little family type business. www.immo-bourse.com (i don't know if they check their mails!)
Lieutaud, much bigger, not always on time and don't always have the keys for you to visit the apartement...
I discovered the SIM here they own most of the rue de la Republique, beautiful parisian style buildings with huge windows, and high ceilings, the Bourse agency can give you some examples, you can go direct (not recommended).

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In France landlords like to have either some who earns 3 times the rent or has a good garantie, parents, boss. You'll normally need two months garanty and the first months rent, plus one months rent for the agency fees. Once you've been accepted it normally takes about a week before you get the keys. You have to do what's called an 'etat des lieux', this basically states that there's a hole in the wall in the hall that there's three tiles broken in the bathroom, that there's a fireplace. When you leave the place your landlord can't say, oh look you broke three tiles you'll have to replace them.

If you dicide to look yourself, the papers to buy are the "Provence" on thursdays, the 13 and the 7 (free), you can get them in the rue St-Ferreol (canebiere side) or eventually the Taktik newspaper (free) offers house shares, and student studios.
"T", "P" or "F" means the number of rooms, normally not including the bathroom and kitchen. "CC" means charges compris (supplementary charges included, staircase lighting, cleaning, etc...) "3é Et" means it's on the third floor. "3é" means it's in the third arrondisement-area. Part Loue means that it's the landlord who is renting direct. Mezzanine means super-imposed sleeping area, "Prox" means near, "Rdc" means ground floor.

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any questions, comments - send me a message