fun with realtors

Friends,

You’ve not heard much from us since we arrived in Kyiv. We are indeed here, we assure you. We’ve been sinking most of our time into our apartment search. Unfortunately, the realty agencies that market to foreigners are used to people with bigger budgets than a grad student research stipend. Most offer nothing for less than a grand. Plus an agency commission of one half a month’s rent. That thousand dollars will get you a “two room flat” – a bedroom and one other room. (Plus a bathroom and kitchen, which don’t count as rooms). We had heard Kyiv was more expensive than Madison, but this, we agreed, was ridiculous. We decided to dig a little deeper.

With tremendous help from some of Amy’s former colleagues (from ISAR), we searched online apartment ads such as Aviso (http://aviso.ua/ -- non-Russian speakers see http://aviso.ua/aviso/eng/). At first glance, it looks like there are tons of places available, starting at $600, downtown in the neighborhoods we want.

Don’t you believe it.

First discount all the old listings that have already rented, which we learn only after calling. Then discover that the bulk of these classified ads are actually posted by agencies. Which would be fine, commission aside, except for the bureaucratic way these agencies are organized: it seems every apartment is assigned to a single agent, who then must coordinate with the owner before they’ll set up a viewing. After a dozen calls back and forth, we might manage to see one apartment. If the agent shows up. And if that advertised location matches the actual location. This was not the case for one lovely apartment we found, largest we’ve seen, a good deal for six hundred, except that “ten minutes walk” from one Metro station proved to be out by the highway, fifteen minutes on the marshrutka (minibus) from a different station. Nice place though, too bad.

In two weeks we’ve managed to see only 5 apartments. We tried to rent two of them, and failed twice. We’ll try again tomorrow.