How to Find a Rental Apartment in a Foreign Country

Locating a rental apartment in a foreign country can be difficult but not impossible.  Step by step, this is how we found the affordable, centrally located apartment that we rented in Oaxaca, Mexico for a 6 month stay.

6 steps to rent an apartment in a foreign country

• Contact a local bilingual real estate agent
• View the classified ads
• Connect with the local expat group
• Walk the neighborhood and find For Rent signs in windows
• Check prices for month long stays at hostels
• Ask your hotel staff for recommendations

We used all of 6 these steps. Guess which one yielded the best results!??

Step by step how we found the perfect rent by the month apartment in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Step 1: Contact a real estate agent

Real estate agents who speak your language can be found easily on the internet. Although we have found realtors online in other countries, we have a realtor recommended to us by a relative who had been to Oaxaca last year to take a language class. 

She stayed with a family who had invited their real estate agent friend over for dinner one night. She mentioned that we would be coming to Oaxaca and looking to rent an apartment.

The real estate agent was awaiting our arrival.  We contacted her as soon as We arrived. She had some very nice places but they were unfortunately all way out of our price range.

Step 2: The classified advertisements

Next we tried calling apartments advertised in the classified section of the newspaper but our Spanish skills are highly lacking for such an endeavor and we had to give up that avenue. Even though we’ve studied Spanish for years, when we tried to speak with landlords over the phone the landlords had no idea what we was saying.

We're disappointed in our language skills, but they will be improving while we're here. We're not attending a language institute like our relative did. Instead we will learn for free while volunteering to participate in an intercambio at the Oaxaca Learning Center.

Step 3: Walk the neighborhood

One of the classified advertisements displayed an address so instead of calling, we walked around town trying to locate it. We found the right street but couldn't locate the address. It simply did didn’t exist. Later we would find out that it did exist and why we couldn’t find it.

We did find three more places in the neighborhood with For Rent signs. The craziest one was a concrete room. And when we say concrete room, we mean it. Someone had poured a concrete floor, a concrete ceiling and 4 concrete walls with one small opening to serve as a doorway covered by a cloth, and literally nothing else.  From what we could gather, there is a communal bathroom shared with the family. They only wanted $50 a month, but no thanks!

We checked out a couple hostels and found one that had two beds. We asked about the cost. They told us the cost per night and we said "Okay but what's the cost for a month?" We were informed that if we multiply the cost per night by 30 that would be the cost per month. We asked, "What if we pay for 3 months?" The answer was to multiply the cost per night by 90. 

This was our first indication that vendors in Oaxaca really do not work on the same capitalistic system as the USA.

Next we found a bed and breakfast that rented rooms by the month. It had a swimming pool and with the heat in Oaxaca we really wanted to stay there but alas, it was out of our price range.

Step 4: Check with the local expat group

Expat groups can be found in almost every country. The expat group in Oaxaca meets at the Oaxaca Lending Library.

The first thing we see besides books, is a bulletin board with posts from expats with rooms for rent. The offerings were for either single seniors, young millennials, or couples. There were no offerings that fit our situation, which is a mother and son team.

Next, the Oaxaca Lending Library keeps a binder of apartments or rooms for rent from local people.

We perused the rental binder where local landlords who want to rent to foreigners can advertise their properties, but we thought everything was too far away. (We were wrong)

None of these avenues proved fruitful so how did we find my apartment?

Step 5: Ask for recommendations from your hotel staff

Our saviors are the owners of the hotel where we are staying, Hotel Las Mariposas. The hotel is run by a local family operating in the housing sector, so they know all the landlords in town. 

Here’s how it came about. We didn’t even have to ask; the hotel owners just offered.

During morning coffee at the bed and breakfast, a group of us were discussing our next apartment finding scheme when Teresa, one of the owners, graciously steps in and offers to make phone calls on our behalf. 

She works her contacts and finds a landlord who has an opening. A viewing is arranged at an apartment/hotel located two blocks from the center of town.

Let’s go check it out!

The path through Oaxacan streets from the hotel to Meson de Penasco is punctuated with old buildings covered in graffiti tagged walls.

You may think this scared us off, but it didn't and this is why:

In Oaxaca, graffiti and crumbling buildings is not an indicator of safety.

We are actually safer here than in our own USA town. After a few days in Oaxaca I’ve come to realize that most of the town is old and tagged with graffiti, even the churches and historic buildings are covered with it. So don't freak out when you encounter graffiti!

This apartment at Mason de Panasco is in the center of town.

Right after we pass the Zocalo (the town square) we make a right turn and come upon an ugly but very secure metal front door of the apartment / hotel named Mason De Penasco. 

A 10 ft x 12 ft black metal door is the only entrance to the property. No outside windows exist on the entire building. This may seem scary, but nope.

Many buildings in the Oaxaca central area have no windows and are fronted by one of these large metal doors.

Architecturally, all the light enters by way of an open courtyard decorated with live plants. After being in Oaxaca for two weeks, we now know that once we enter we will be greeted by a beautiful interior courtyard. 

We’re at the large metal door and locate the doorbell. A man answers. He’s the handyman and also the maid.

It’s very hot outside and we are pleased to enter a cool interior area complete with ping pong table, couch, and small library.

We are shown a one bedroom and a two bedroom apartment that surround a beautiful open courtyard. Total room choices are studio, one bedroom or two bedrooms. All apartment contain a kitchen. Apartment have tile floors, brick ceilings and a good sized bathroom.

Next, we ascend two flights of stairs to the rooftop. Although the look and feel of the apartment complex is very authentic and landscaped beautifully, the rooftop is where we are awed.

Our back is to the city as we ascend the stairs to the rooftop seating area.

and then we turn around and Wow!

Greeting us is a view of the entire southern end of the city and the surrounding mountains. The city of Oaxaca is situated in a bowl surrounded by mountains, and our rooftop is just high enough that we can see most of the city including the churches and historical buildings.

We visualize ourselves seated up here in the evening enjoying the twinkling lights of the town below. That cinched it for us.

Looks like Meson De Penasco will be our new home! 

Note: Airbnb and Booking.com are valid methods that we have used successfully for vacation rentals; however, landlords without technical knowledge are left out of these systems. Also, the prices will be higher when renting through corporations as the landlord receives only a portion of the fee.

As with Airbnb and Booking.com, the landlords in Oaxaca did not ask for proof of income or signing of a lease.