Job Discussion Forums

[James Hetfield]

My pathetic beginner Spanish not good enough to hunt and negotiate rooms. If I'm interviewing for teaching jobs, could I ask my school for help finding a room? Any resources in English? Don't need apartment, just a room near school. Should I expect to live in a hostel the whole time? Lima, Cusco, or smaller towns?

Buenos Aires makes it very hard to find apartment, requiring a local as a Guarantor, very expensive and complicated. I was stuck in hostel for months. Need big security deposits? How about in Lima, Cusco?

Hoping Naturegirl offers expert advice!

[naturegirl321]

If you're looking in tourist areas, lots of owners will speak English. But you'll pay through the nose.

An insitute probably won't help you. At least here in LIma. Shcools might be more willing to help out. IN the provinces, people are more helpful in general. Especially if you go to a smaller town.

Rsources in english are at www.expatperu.com and www.livinginperu.com also on www.expatperu.com there's an expatlistserv. Sign up and post that you are looking for a room and how much you want to pay, everyone, there's about 1000 people on the list serv, speak English and that's how we got some of our places.

Here, it's usually two months' rent plus a guarantee up front. So it's like paying three months rent up front.. BUt you can negotiate. We usually just pay two. We've lived in five different flats in two years, then bought our own.

You can sign, you don't need a local to sign.

[Gusss]

I used to pay a hundred soles a month for a lovely little place in Pucallpa. Limas insanely expensive .

Just print this out :

Hola. Quiero alquiler una apartamiento o casa bien barata. Por favor no me enganas solo porque soy Gringo. Quiero pagar m�ximum 100 dolares por mes.

I never even heard of paying a deposit in the places I lived the whole concept would be laughable to most Peruvians. You can rent some lovely little places, don't stay at hostels , you'll pick up Spanish - unless you hang out with expats all the time then you'll learn nothing and you might as well stay at home !

Seriously just say : quiero alquiler un cuarto barrato

[naturegirl321]

Provinces are super cheap compared to Lima. Here's an exam. OUr flat is 60K, it's only 80m2, in Trujillo we could get a house for 60K and it would be about 150 m2.

Deposits are the norm. It's one month deposit, plus one or two months' rent. We've lived in five flats, and always had to pay deposits. That's in LIma, In the provinces, we've never paid a deposit. Gusss, you were in the provinces, so I guess things were different.

[Gusss]