I don't want to be homeless in Munich

July 3, 2008 9:56 PM

How do I find a place to live in Munich?

I'm moving to Munich for six months. I have never been there before and my german skills are extremely limited (I am learning from tapes). I will be working in Garching and I want to be within walking distance of the U6. My friend suggested I look in Schwabing.

Assuming I decide I want to share an apt and that Schwabing is the right place for me, how do I actually go about finding a place? I have already looked on toytowngermany.com and got a few leads, and I also looked at www.wg-gesucht.de without much success (since it's all in german).

I will be arriving at the end of August and I would like to live in an international house, if possible.

posted by emmykm to travel & transportation around Munich, Germany (4 answers total)

"With some difficulty." It's the hardest city in Germany to find a place to live in, due to price and due to the sheer number of students in the city. That being the case, wg-gesucht.de and studenten-wg.de are really your best bets. If you can learn enough German to be able to decipher the ads with the help of a German dictionary, most Wohngemeinschafts will have at least one person who speaks passable English. Similarly, you can write an ad (in English) on either of those sites, looking for international houses that have a room. Feel free to MeMail me for help. If you're a student, you can look into getting a spot in one of the many München Studentenwerk Wohnheims.

Additionally, if I were you, I'd consider other, non-U6 neighborhoods. Bits of western Schwabing are charming but nearer the U2; bits of the Altstadt or Lehel or the Glockenbachviertel are great but also U2/U1; bits of the Westend are great but are closer to the S-Bahn or the U4 or U5. Your commute won't be that much worse with any of these options (the MVV is awesome), but you'll have a much larger selection of (potentially pleasant) places to look into. LMU has a decent guide for international students; check it out. And again, feel free to MeMail me for specific advice regarding music venues or cultural stuff that might make you feel at home.
posted by ubersturm at 12:05 AM on July 4, 2008

There is also easywg.de.
When there is expat-talk on mefi toytown seems to be the community portal of choice. Maybe you can ask there? Though this might give you too much contact with English speakers which might make it harder to learn German. But this will be hard anyway, since many Germans want to improve their English by talking to you. You should stick to grumpy old Farmers :-) On the other hand, don't do it, you'll learn bavarian this way, which is supposed to be German, but only bavarians understand it. Oh, how the tapes will mislead you... It will be fun. Have a great time.
posted by mmkhd at 3:03 AM on July 4, 2008

Also check out kijiji.de
posted by chillmost at 4:45 AM on July 4, 2008

Craigslist has a low-volume but useful presence in Munich, certainly worth a look (about as low-volume as it in in Vienna, but Craigslist Vienna is how I found my perfect house share there).

As ubersturm points out, Munich is a student-heavy town and most young people speak enough English to communicate very well with a roommate. I think it's a great city for a first experience in Germany. Here's a detailed Munich article and slide show from a couple of months ago and a list of a dozen English-language blogs by expats living in Munich.
posted by kalapierson at 9:19 AM on July 4, 2008