Jul 282010
(asked by Melanie from somewhere)
I have a question about apartment hunting in France. When I look up places to rent their prices come up as 255cc in euros and does not specify if it is weekly or monthly. What does ‘cc’ mean and do you know if in France apartments are usually paid by the month or week?
Yeah, I know, I’m posting two articles in the same night, crazy, eh?
I also have a question for you. Where did you find an apartment with a rent of €255, so that I can move there?
Now to your answer:
Rents in France are always paid monthly. Always…
Well, except in some websites and companies for expats, which I hate because they know expats are willing to pay whatever crazy price they’ll be told if it means that they can find an apartment in Paris, so those sites/companies totally mark up prices compared to the market, and they are partly to blame for the fact that finding an apartment is insane in Paris, and those may make foreigners pay by the week, especially tourists that will stay in an apartment for a week because it’ll be cheaper than a hotel anyway, and much “cooler” because they’ll get to live like real Parisians, but with total disregard of the fact that by doing so they’re playing a role in the housing problems that have been plaguing Paris. Yes, I’m aware that this sentence is way too long but those companies really make me angry… When I think that some months ago one of them proposed some sort of partnership with me (by partnership they meant that I’ll advertise them on my blog for free of course). In case you’re wondering, I told them to go to hell.
So basically, if you didn’t look at pricing through one of those, and nothing was specified it’s a monthly rent. But seriously, where did you find an apartment for €255 a month? It’s gotta be a small studio in a small town, isn’t it?
What about “cc”?
“cc” means charges comprises or in English: “utilities included” that is water and garbage and part of the salary of the person that cleans the common areas of the building and so on.
Rents can be expressed “cc” or “hc” hors charges, that is “utilities not included”. In that latter cases, the amount of utilities must be expressed to. If utilities are sometimes separated from the price it’s because of taxes, financial help one can get and stuff like that which are usually based on the renting price without utilities.
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"Charges" might mean lots of things: Sometimes the charges you pay are for garbage and building cleaning, sometimes it means this plus cold water, or electricity…
Do not hesistate to ask to the owner.
It's very unlikely "electricity" in included in the utilities, expect for short stays. For the rest, yeah, it really depends…
one good charge to see included in the CC is : heat !
god I want to see 255cc or 255 anywhere in paris for that matter as well
I guess that is 255 if you share a bed, literally.
In Paris, it won’t happen in this lifetime, but in a small town, you guess you can find a small apartment or a big studio for that price.