St.pauls bay

Forgive me if I begin with a couple of general points about estate agents, which you didn't ask for.

Be aware that, unlike UK where sole agency is the norm, in Malta properties are often marketed through multiple agents. So if you contact several agents, you may well get offered the same properties over and over again. You may well also find that a property your agent was offering has been let by another agent by the time you ask about it. It's a fast-moving market.

Also, be aware that agencies typically charge a "finder's fee" of one month's rent, split 50:50 between landlord and tenant.  (This fee seemed to take another poster here by surprise lately.)

I used the agency Frank Salt at franksalt.com.mt and was pleased with them. They are big and reputable. I'm sure there are other good agencies too though.

Hope that helps.

Hi Rita, welcome on Expat-blog!

You may view the Malta classifieds > job section and accommodation section. You can also post adverts there as well.

I wish you good luck
Christine

We live in St Paul's Bay and we used dhalia.com. We're quite happy with them and our flat (which is very modern). However it is a matter of seeing the places in person for the best answer to your question of which places are nicely and modern furnished. Sometimes pictures from the online ads are very misleading!

JohnS is correct- by going through a letting agent you will have to pay the agent a fee which is equal to one months rent which you split with the landlords of the property. Up front it could be quite expensive as you'll have to pay this fee plus your first months rent and your damage deposit which is usually equal to one months rent as well. Just so you know.

Thankyou for your help, did you move straight into an apartment. or did you stay in a hotel first? Also do you know if its easy getting a seasonal job, like cleaning hotel rooms etc?

I stayed in a hotel for two weeks. With hindsight, I could perhaps just about have managed to find a flat in one week. I agree with RubyMarie that you need actually to see some places for yourself.

A little more background: rents are cheaper for a "long let" (6 months plus) than a "holiday let" (shorter). If you're signing up for 6 months, of course, it's even more important to make sure you're happy with what you're getting.

I don't know about seeking work in Malta, but hopefully someone else can advise.

Thankyou, i will be renting long term, so hopefully we can maybe sort something out a couple month before we come over. were hoping to move next september, so would prefer to have somewhere to move in to also get all our stuff sent over at the same time!

We actually lived with my husbands father and nanna for 3 months before we moved into our own place. So we were lucky that way and didn't have to finda hotel or a short term let. There are quite a few hotels and in St.Pauls Bay/Buggiba/Qawra area so I don't imagine it would be too hard to find seasonal work but the wages would be quite low I would suspect

Ok thankyou for your help, do any of you who have moved there ever regretted it?

Nowhere is perfect - we've been here a year and are currently re-evaluating...often it depends on the day and what you had to deal with or not....and what you are comparing to and of course your own circumstances.

Here's a fresh example, we just spent the day at the public Hospital, Mater Dei. It was free for us, which is brilliant, but it was so slow and inefficient...in the US it would likely have been efficient BUT unless we had very good private insurance it would have cost us a lot of money.

Tim