Renting in Malta

Hello

I am posting this topic to ask opinions about Malta renting status.
I find really difficult to find a place to rent primarily because there are very few signs in Malta "For Rent" and second because the only other way found is through agents which are not very helpful.
More details once you go to an agent the first question is how much is your budget. If you tell them ex 500 euro -regardless the location- they are not bothered to help you at all.
This causes of course inflation of the market value. Example 3 years ago you could find to rent a 2 bedroom apartment at 350euro, nowadays no less than 600 meaning that the renting in 3 years had doubled.
From the other hand were I currently live there are hundreds of block apartments completed for like 3 years and all of them are empty as if they are not interested in renting - only selling.
Does any body else faces this problem? Also do you have any other ideas on how the property market in Malta works?
When I came here it was nice, but now they are keep pushing the market to share flats as its getting to expensive to my opinion for a person to live on its own.
Finally as I see things, you migrate for a better life, but If I wanted to migrate so that I just to live and pay my rent maybe it would be better to move back to my country :-)

All opinions are welcome even the harsh ones as I am sure that many Maltese people might find offensive what I stated above

Thanks and regards

based on our experience-
We move here in Malta January 2014 and we manage to rent an apartment in Sliema for 750 bedroom modern and we can say that our landlord are very nice and always there if have some apartment concerned. Time had pass and we decided to move out since its getting dangerous living in 3rd floor apartment with 2.5 years old boy. 2015 June we finally found 3 bedroom apartment in Iklin which is modern and brand new apartment. Luckily we are the first one to move in yehey!!! Its more expensive than in sliema its actually cost 825 with car garage and at least we have backyard play area for our son. Just weeks living in our apartment we already realized that there is no such perfect place to live. We've got a newly wed neighbor that usually fight anytime they want and it goes hours by hours shouting to each other. During 2015 summer, they have lots of guest and most of them smoke like mad that seems there is no tomorrow. So we cannot used the play area for our Son not even hung the clothes outside and cannot open our window in the living room.
With all those headaches, early this year we decided to look for another apartment. Usually we used to send few emails from different rental agencies and of course you will only received reply lets say 1 reply out of 5 rental agencies you've been contacted. And you're right the first question they will ask from you were HOW MUCH YOUR BUDGET? Lets say they have advertisement, particular properties and the rent per month is mentioned in that post and when you ask them for viewing they will ask you back that question. When you say of course I am interested with the price of that property advertised in your website. Then you will ended up in tears, because they will tell you, ahhhhhh that apartment is no longer available or its been rented out yesterday or this morning today. So they will start with their bla bla bla that they will find the apartment that comply all what you have in your check list. So when the day finally arrived for viewing of the apartment its usually happened that the land lord didn't show up. As lucky as we are its been 4 times that the land lord didn't show up on viewing day. When we finally got one appointment and the land lord was there, he asked 850 for his property per month. Somehow here in Malta in viewing the property some don't even bother to clean the apartment before they view it to prospect client. The first apartment we saw was in zebbug and it was completely  greasy and you can't imagine how it looks like inside the apartment. The washing machine was completely rusty and old and the land lord is even proud of it. In the advertisement it say 3 bedroom and 2 bathroom but when we're there its only one bathroom don't even have a bathtub. We found second one but we ended up tears once again, in short we got tired looking for new apartment because most of the rental agencies are not really serious in helping you if you don't have much budget. Rent in Malta is really getting more expensive I dunno if we can do anything about it. Our rent in sliema 2 years ago for 2 bedroom for 750 and now 2 bedroom apartment there start 1200+ and for them that's a bargain. lol.

PS. the change to get cheaper if you rent somewhere in north of malta.

North, Gozo and some locations in the South of Malta are cheaper. But still need at least 600-700/month for a decent place.

And yes - prices have gone way up (except in Gozo). We went to view a few properties recently and holy **** things have changed in two and a half years. Seems like everyone's an estate agent now lol.