ROOM
- Advantages of a Room in a Shared Apartment
- 1. Cost: 350-550 Euros.
- 2. Deposit: Usually 1 month.
- 3. No wifi, electricity, water bills.
- 4. No proof of employment letter and earnings certificate necessary.
- 5. Easier to find rooms in a shared apartment than a whole place.
- 6. No extra furniture or appliance expenses.
- 7. Cleaning person sometimes included.
- 8. Owner fixes everything.
- 9. You can rent September (or whenever you arrive) through June (ie. you don’t have to pay the summer).
ACCOMMODATION IN MADRID
We are going to show you the different short and medium term options that you have to make a smooth transition from your previous home to your new home in Madrid.
APARTMENT
- Advantages of an Apartment for Yourself
- You can live alone, decorate the place to your own taste, enjoy freedom of movement and privacy. It is your refuge, you can stay at home all weekend, invite who you want, keep pets, enjoy the silence of a monastery or make all the noise you want and throw huge parties. During the week you can teach privates in your living room, do Skype classes, have parents, relatives, acquaintances, travel friends, or friends from back home stay on your couch. Your girl or boyfriend can sleep over, or maybe you already have a steady couple or live with your husband or wife. If you’re a very neat and tidy person, nobody’s around to create disharmony. If you feel more at home in disorder and chaos, nobody’s around to get on your case. The kitchen is all yours to cook up a storm, with nothing and nobody to get in your way. You make all the decisions, cause you’re the boss and your “house is your castle and your keep!”
Disadvantages of an Apartment for Yourself
1. Cost: 650-1250+ Euros/month.
– Apartments from a small mini-studio of 20 m2 (66 ft2) to a bigger place of up to 50m2 (164 ft2) will range in cost from 650-1250+ Euros/month.
2. It requires two or more deposits up front with the first months’ rent.
3. You have to pay extra monthly wifi, electricity and water bills.
4. Renters often ask you for proof of employment from your employer and a monthly earnings statement (because Canterbury English employs you, we can give this letter to you).
5. You usually need to sign a year’s lease.
6. Whole apartments are harder to find than a room in an apartment, so the apartment hunt takes longer.
7. Cost of expenses for extra furniture and appliances that you want.
8. You will have to clean the whole place yourself or pay a cleaning person.
9. Often you have to pay to repair things that the owner doesn’t/won’t fix.
10. Because you have a year’s lease, you need to keep paying rent in the summer.
- Unless you are a couple who is certain to be staying in Spain for the medium-long term, most people do what we all did when we first arrived here, and that is they choose to rent a room in a shared apartment to start off the adventure in Madrid. After a certain length of time, when they are more settled down, they move into a whole flat for themselves, or together with one or two friends that they have made, often through Canterbury English. This is when the proof of employment letter and earnings certificate that Canterbury English writes and stamps for you, becomes crucial in getting an edge on other house hunters for the apartment of your dreams in Madrid.
Here is a general idea of the different neighborhoods in Madrid. This depends on you and your tastes and what you are familiar with. For example, you may prefer the more exclusive and classy upscale Barrio de Salamanca right next to the city center, where the Canterbury HQ is located. This is definitely for the preppy. On the other hand, you may want to immerse yourself in popular Madrid: Lavapies (hippy and cool), Sol (ground zero España), Anton Marin (Artsy with lots of colorful cafes and bars), Rastro (home to the flea market), Opera (classy and next to the royal palace), Gran Via (the ultimate in fashion) or Malasaña (party town) are all great places to live. If you haven’t come with your other half, then you may want to look for a place together with your now good friends from the Canterbury English program. Often the job that you have is either all over the city, or in one area, such as the outskirts of Madrid. If it is in the outskirts, then you may want to live closer to work and rent is cheaper in these suburbs. If you are working all over city, then think about your choice of home as being the hub, which is the center of a wheel. The spokes of the wheel are the trajectories that you have to make to travel to your different jobs and the center is the hub, your home. So living in the center of the city (in one of the barrios mentioned earlier) makes it easier to travel to and from classes and to have a siesta after your early morning 8 am tutorial (you’re raising your eyebrows in disbelief, but we’re serious, cause we’ve all done it and on a regular basis!), especially on a Friday morning and after a Thursday Pub Night with our Canterbury Party Club.
CANTERBURY ENGLISH RECOMMENDS
With all that said, we recommend that as the best and least expensive option: you organize a room for yourself before you arrive in Madrid (see the websites below). You can also stay in a hostel (we will send you a CE recommended list) for your first week or two and look for a room yourself (using the websites below and going in person to see the room). This way, depending on the options that you find, you can chose best what fits your budget and personal preferences. If you are doing the TEFL course and you don’t have a room set up before you arrive, we recommend you arrive at least a week before to find your room, because you will be really busy during the course. If you are doing the Madrid Lifestyle program you could arrive a few days early or even the day before orientation.
You can also look for an apartment with classmates from the Canterbury English program, so as an example, you split the 1000 Euros for a full apartment three ways. This means we give you three Canterbury English proof of employment letters and proof of earnings certificates, which will guarantee you the place that you want is yours. Also, you’ll be living with friends, who are going through exactly the same process as you are. What more could you ask for!
DO IT ON YOUR OWN!
WEBSITES AVAILABLE:
CATEGORY 1: ROOM RENTING WEBSITES FOR STUDENTS (Available in English and Spanish, except for Badi) CLICK THE LINKS BELOW FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
CATEGORY TWO: WEBSITES FOR APARTMENTS & ROOMS FOR NON-STUDENTS AND STUDENTS (Available in English and Spanish, except for Mil Anuncios) CLICK THE LINKS BELOW FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
CATEGORY THREE: HOMESTAY
Homestay.com connects host families with students and independent travellers looking for accommodation. The Homestay community offers you the opportunity to live with a local and to truly discover your destination. They offer a wide selection of rooms for both long and short term accommodation that offer great value for money, leaving you with more to spend enjoying your time in Spain.
For you as a CE teacher new arrival, this is a really good option for cheap accomodation when you first arrive in Madrid and are looking to rent a room in a shared appartment or to rent your own appartment. A homestay gets your foot into Madrid cheaply, as well as giving you the more family and friend feeling when you first arrive, compared to a hostel or an Airbnb. Starting out with a homestay is highly recommended for CE teachers.
https://www.homestay.com/
CATEGORY FOUR: WORKAWAY
A Workawayer is: a traveller who wants to give back to the communities and places they visit. Open to helping hosts and using the experience to learn and immerse in the local culture.
Spanish families love our Canterbury English teachers who can teach their kids (or sometimes the parents) in the afternoons or evenings and this works very well for the morning Catholic School Program job with us. With Homestay you are not paying rent, food and utilities (a big part of your salary) and so if you don’t mind living with a family and you find the right family, this could be key for you to save money here in Madrid.
https://www.workaway.info/
CATEGORY FIVE: REAL ESTATE AGENCY WEBSITE (400-500 € in fees, but easier (they do the appartment hunting work) CLICK THE LINKS BELOW FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
CATEGORY SIX: CITY LIFE MADRID
This company offers free services such as:
housing, cell phone plans and internet, public transportation card, open a new bank account, medical assistance, Empadronamiento and NIE-TIE, and many more.
The website: https://www.
The address: Calle Gran Via 22 – Duplicado, 2nd Floor, 28013 Madrid, Spain.
Example 1: Housing, once you fill the form, you will get emails of accommodation offers based on our budget. (A teacher says: “I didn’t follow up on the accommodation offers I got in the emails, because I got the room from the information on the Canterbury English website”.
Example 2: Cell Phone: Simply fill the form on their website, and come to their office to pick the cell phone (which teachers do once they arrived in Madrid.)
NOTE: If you live with a host family, they will probably cover most of your expenses so it’s a great option for young people who enjoy working with children. However, CANTERBURY ENGLISH does not provide host families arragements, but we will definitely accomodate to your personal timetable!
We wish you all the best of luck in room or apartment hunting!
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