Rental for winter 2016

123Walt wrote:

We are a retired Canadian couple currently wintering in Puerto Escondido Mexico. We love it here - we have a very nice social life - but the weather is too hot. For next January to March we would like to try Morocco, perhaps Essaouira.
Ideally we would like to find an apartment building or area  which has a number of other English speaking residents. We think that would help us to quickly establish a social network and make our stay more enjoyable.
We would appreciate any suggestions as to where to look for rentals
Many thanks.

It's pretty cold in Essaouira in the winter! The wind is horrendous and biting - not for nothing is it advertised as "Windy City Afrika. You need thick jackets the whole time in the evening and the days can be rather cold too. I am moving to  Morocco shortly, although I visited some time ago and had the misfortune of visiting Essaouira in the cold period. In addition, I hated it, although it might be great for you as there are plenty of foreigners there. Gone are the days that it was the "fishing village" that it pretends to be. It's a small city of 100,000 people geared towards tourism/extracting the maximum money from foreigners with all the horrors that this implies - overpriced and bad restaurants (they know that they won't get repeat trade from tourists, so why bother to serve good food?), rip-off artists all over, false "guides" who want nothing but your money, rather unpleasant townspeople who smile in your face but sneer behind your back (or if you call them out on an attempted scam are openly hostile), fake twee additions to the original architecture. All in all, I found it loathsome.

A word of advice. If you decide to go to Morocco, whether Essaouira or not, as you are staying for some considerable time, get yourselves parked in an hotel for the first few days and go to a reputable physical estate agency for your accommodation. Insist on meeting the owner and bargain the price down after you have seen the property. Don't rent from online. You can be lucky, but appearances are deceptive and photos often don't correspond to the real thing. In addition, that lovely roof terrace shown might just overlook a stinking cesspit or rubbish dump!

Lastly, never accept offers from people who pop up on these forums to offer "their" property. The forums are infested with scammers, despite the best efforts of the moderating team. Unfortunately, this spoils it for the very few genuine people. The scammers will be intermediaries for the real landlord, if indeed the property exists at all and will take a hefty commission whether you rent or not. They are a buffer between you and the landlord for his benefit. If he uses one of these scammers, you can't bargain the price down and why would you want to rent from such aa person anyway?

SvenStockholm wrote:

123Walt wrote:

We are a retired Canadian couple currently wintering in Puerto Escondido Mexico. We love it here - we have a very nice social life - but the weather is too hot. For next January to March we would like to try Morocco, perhaps Essaouira.
Ideally we would like to find an apartment building or area  which has a number of other English speaking residents. We think that would help us to quickly establish a social network and make our stay more enjoyable.
We would appreciate any suggestions as to where to look for rentals
Many thanks.

It's pretty cold in Essaouira in the winter! The wind is horrendous and biting - not for nothing is it advertised as "Windy City Afrika. You need thick jackets the whole time in the evening and the days can be rather cold too. I am moving to  Morocco shortly, although I visited some time ago and had the misfortune of visiting Essaouira in the cold period. In addition, I hated it, although it might be great for you as there are plenty of foreigners there. Gone are the days that it was the "fishing village" that it pretends to be. It's a small city of 100,000 people geared towards tourism/extracting the maximum money from foreigners with all the horrors that this implies - overpriced and bad restaurants (they know that they won't get repeat trade from tourists, so why bother to serve good food?), rip-off artists all over, false "guides" who want nothing but your money, rather unpleasant townspeople who smile in your face but sneer behind your back (or if you call them out on an attempted scam are openly hostile), fake twee additions to the original architecture. All in all, I found it loathsome.

A word of advice. If you decide to go to Morocco, whether Essaouira or not, as you are staying for some considerable time, get yourselves parked in an hotel for the first few days and go to a reputable physical estate agency for your accommodation. Insist on meeting the owner and bargain the price down after you have seen the property. Don't rent from online. You can be lucky, but appearances are deceptive and photos often don't correspond to the real thing. In addition, that lovely roof terrace shown might just overlook a stinking cesspit or rubbish dump!

Lastly, never accept offers from people who pop up on these forums to offer "their" property. The forums are infested with scammers, despite the best efforts of the moderating team. Unfortunately, this spoils it for the very few genuine people. The scammers will be intermediaries for the real landlord, if indeed the property exists at all and will take a hefty commission whether you rent or not. They are a buffer between you and the landlord for his benefit. If he uses one of these scammers, you can't bargain the price down and why would you want to rent from such aa person anyway?

Hi,

I found your post five years later - April 2020. You’ve described Essaouira really well: A city full of scammers. Every other person is a scammer.

However, if you happen to have any intention to retire, this could potentially be a very good place.
The local scammers would stop harassing you right away once they see that you are part of the community; because there is no point trying to scam you for anything!

The retirees all live outside the Medina, in the best and part of town in new development by the sea. It’s actually very lovely, and unlike the Medina, it’s free of scammers, low lives, loud tourists or drug dealers. There is direct flight to most European cities, and still cheaper than the rather glamorous cities in the North.