Searching room to rent Dusseldorf

I don't know the area myself but in and around large German cities there is not really a general discount to live farther out of the center.  Cost will much more be determined on the size, condition and amenities offered - and what the landlord thinks it is worth. And many people might prefer to live a bit outside of a big city where it is more green and relaxed; thus no reason for a discount. To find that, one would usually have to go a considerable distance and be without any connection to public transport; thus needing a car and a daily long commute. One might likely spend more money and time on transportation than they could save on rent.

Really better to concentrate on areas that are convenient to where you will be working or studying and find the place that fits best to you including price. For students and young people, the preferred strategy is to get a room in  shared apartment. This is by far the cheapest and usually such places will be centrally located or near a university rather than far from the center.

Hello, I hope it's okay to revive an old thread like this.

Me, my wife and our two-year old son are thinking about spending six months in Germany, we have some friends in Düsseldorf and thought that might be a nice place to go.

I looked at Facebook marketplace and found around ten places to rent with furniture. Price is put at 550€ to 900€.

The standard rate for a listing on FB Marketplace is ..../per month, but do the prices look correct to you? Looking at other threads I'm a bit worried I'm looking at weekly prices 😅

Would you say this is a good way to find a short term place? If we are able to rent via Marketplace, does the price usually exclude other costs? Electric, water, internet etc?

We would be able to spend about 2000€ per month on living, food and transportation. Is this doable for 2 adults and a toddler or are we way off?

• You can check the market level of rents at your intended location from the official rental survey ("Mietspiegel"), which most German towns publish.
• All rentals here are per month, and normally for an empty flat excluding utilities like electricity, Internet, heating, water, garbage, etc. For most of these, the tenant is expected to have their own contract wth a supplier- but that requires a residence permit, whch you might not have.
• On top of that, three months rental as security deposit is common, payable on move-in.
• Furnished flats cost a hefty surcharge (30 - 50% more) and are rare.
• Most German landlords look for long-term tenants. Six months is too short to be of interest to them.
• FB Marketplace is not a good place to look. Try kleinanzeigen.de instead, or immoscout24.de if you are prepared to pay an agents fee (another three months rent usually).
• You have to be very careful, as there are any scams looking out for people like you. If it sounds too good (or cheap) to be true, it probably is!

I think you should rather look for serviced, short-term flats, which are price-wise inbetween normal rentals and hotels, but especially geared towards people like you.

And €2000/month is near the poverty line for a family of three, so you cannot realistically expect to manage with that as a foreign newcomer without much knowledge of the place!

Thank you for such a detailed reply!

Yeah, we are sort of realizing that we may be over our heads with this, before we had a kid we spent a year in Istanbul where we rented a gorgeous penthouse apartment. Everything regarding the place there cost us about 500€ a month, so European prices got scary real quick.

If we are not able to rent a furnished place for 6 months for reasonable money (for us), then plan B will be to find something on AirBnB and maybe just stay a couple of months instead.

I appreciate the advice on Marketplace ads. They did look a bit too good to be true.