Apartment for Study Abroad semester in Paris
 

My daughter will be studying for the spring semester (2009) at the American Business School in Paris (ABSP). It is located fairly near Gare de l'Est (5 minute walk, according to the school's brochures), off the Canal Saint Martin. Can anyone recommend a site to look for an apartment for her and her 2 other roommates? I know there are several shorter term rentals that Fodorites have recommended in the past, but am now interested in a January - June rental (furnished, of course) in the general area of the ABSP campus. Thanks in advance!

My first thought is that the School itself should be helping with this.

Nearer the Canal would be better than nearer the station: anywhere in the immediate surroundings of major railway stations can become a bit unsavoury, but the Canal St Martin is a rather trendy address.

The school (ABSP) will help, somewhat, but, frankly, I trust Fodorites even more! As for the U.S. school - U. of South Carolina - they turn it over to the students and ABSP to work it out. Our first daughter went to Nice with U. of Maryland's program, and they had a local director (UMD faculty) in Nice who arranged apartments, which I thought was great. The USC program is less structured, and generally facilitates students to integrate with ABSP, rather than having a small cell that stayed together (like UMD).

Getting back to the 10th Arrondissement, I heard that it might not be the best location, so the students are casting a wider net looking for apartments. Perhaps we should be looking further afield than the 10th?

Well, it would certainly be part of the Paris experience to commute on the metro or bus (or even by Velib bike on a nice day).

The 10th is OK in parts, not so much in others (I should invest in a map or get used to www.mappy.com and www.pagesjaunes.fr to be able to check out where places are). But I did a home exchange last August "over the border" in the 19th (up the hill the other side from the Canal St Martin), which was fine, as would be the 11th, south of there.

Your daughter and her roommates should get used to the interactive map at
http://www.ratp.info/orienter/cv/cv_en/carteparis.php. For ease of access, I suggesting looking along metro line 7 or bus 46 (which go direct to the metro station nearest the school).

Unfortunately, I can't help with rental sites, but people who advertise holiday rentals might also be interested in longer arrangements - particularly if they take in part of the winter.

Another thought: you could also check out www.slowtrav.com and their forums, which are more oriented towards longer-term lets.

Has she checked out the international students' village? http://www.ciup.fr/cite_internationale.htm

When I did study abroad in Paris years ago, I stayed in a "private" dorm. I loved the location in Montparnasse and the cafeteria food which was wonderful. It was very safe and clean but a little restrictive to a modern college student (ie no one of the opposite sex in the dorm, etc) but that was 20 years ago. Here is the info:

Maison des Étudiants
214 boulevard Raspail
75014 Paris
Tel. : +33 1 42 18 14 02 / Fax : +33 1 43 20 70 11
Email: [email protected]

I found this review on Slowtrav - which is in a fairly popular area about 20 minutes from the school by public transport (and close to the direct bus) - even if this isn't what they're looking for, the contact might be able to advise on alternatives as well:

http://www.slowtrav.com/france/vr/review.asp?n=613

Good luck with this, it is extremely late to try to get something like that for January. A lot of longer-term apartments are not furnished, of course, and those that are may not be available for such a longer period, and beginning in just a couple months. So I think you will have to consider about everything you can find. On top of that, trying to find an apartment for three is going to make it even harder.

The 10th at least will be cheaper, so that's something, I don't see anything wrong with it unless you are willing to spend anything for these girls to rent an apt. in Paris. I also think just a student residence or foyer might make more sense.

I think you'll need to try some French apt. rental websites. I used one for a short-term apt., but they have some longer term rentals, also, and their rates aren't too bad because they are local French owners. It has a good search function, anyway, so you can narrow it down right away to those available for that time period. I just tried it and they only had about a dozen in all of Paris still available for that long a period, furnished, and that was two bedrooms. Rates ranged from around 2000-3000 euro per month, I guess. There was one in the 10th, actually. That is www.lodgis.fr

Here is a good document by the University of Sorbonne that gives all kinds of resident options, including foyers, with an idea of their rates and their contact info. If one doesn't find an apt., the private foyers might work.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/63jzwt

That may be very difficult at this point for January, however.

You might also look at www.nyhabitat.com as they have a decent search tool and also some nice apts. with Parisian owners.

ON both of those apt. websites, or any, I think you have to be very clear as to whether the listed price includes the agency fee, as often the long-term rentals do not.

I appreciate all the responses - lots of good food for thought, and great sites to check out for more information. I agree that it seems very late to be trying to organize housing, but that's the timeline we were dealt. It was certainly better to have someone "on the ground" in France, as my other daughter had in Nice with the U. of Maryland program. I'm not sure why South Carolina does not have that kind of arrangement, except that this program with ABSP is as a partner, and it's not solely run by USC. They (USC) do have other programs in France that are theirs, so perhaps those are run like the Maryland-in-Nice program, with a local director.

You might want to try FUSAC (=France-USA-Contacts), a fortnightly free classifieds magazine distributed around Paris and aimed at Engish speakers.

It has plenty of ads for short and long term rentals, often for furnished apartments http://www.fusac.fr/en/ (I think only a selection of ads from the magazine are put onto the website, but it's a start)

On the whole, furnished rentals can be quite rare in Paris, where most students tend to rent unfurnished studio flats. Sharing is quite rare too, and not all landlords are open to it.

You may want to try this site :

http://www.leparisdedorothee.com/?lang=en

They are an agency that does furnished rentals for at least a month. I moved from Paris in July and they were handling the re-renting of my apartment. They were very professional and responsive, even helping us out to get my security deposit back.

Good luck !