Apartment rental is one of the solutions for young families to start a life together, apart from their parents or other relatives. This doesn’t apply only to Romania, as nowhere in the world very young people are paid as much as to afford buying their own home within their first years of work. Renting a home doesn’t come cheap. In fact, the monthly rent is more or less equal with a mortgage loan installment. This makes people think that it would be better to take a loan and repay it within 15-20 years time, instead of just paying rent and getting nothing in the end, but only the fact that you had a place to live in for all those years. However, in order to be proved for such a loan, one has to meet certain personal income criteria. Additionally, a minimum advance payment is required, and most young people simply didn’t work for long enough time to accumulate such savings. This is how it comes that people around 20 – 25 years of age find it very hard to buy their own apartment or to build a house for them and their family.

Here are a few tips for people who want to rent an apartment:

- Do a calculation before you commit into anything, in order to see how much can you afford to pay on a monthly basis. It’s always tempting to say yes to an offer which looks appealing and to think that you can pay the extra 50 Euro required, only to find yourself one year later in impossibility to pay your rent anymore. If you can’t afford two rooms, you may want to rent a one-room apartment, but for this, you’ll have to search for “inchirieri garsoniere Ploiesti” in the local classifieds newspapers.

- Think long term, but be sure you have a way out earlier if needed. It’s true that many times you can get additional discounts if you sign a long term agreement, however it would be best to be free to break it any given time, without major financial consequences for you. You never know what life brings, so you may wish to leave much sooner than expected.

- Hire a real estate agency to search for your apartment, like “Imobiliare Ploiesti“. The commission is usually half of the first month’s rent, but if you think at the advantages of having somebody else to do all that time consuming search, you’ll see it’s worth paying it

- Have a priorities list: you may have multiple demands from your apartment. However, you have to bear in mind that it’s possible you can’t find the ideal place within your desired time frame, so you’d better define your absolute must-haves and the things you’d like to have but you can live without if you can’t find them

Last but not least, never let yourself dragged into not making a written agreement with the owner. There are still people who may want to save some money by not paying taxes on their rental income. You don’t want that, because if something goes wrong, you’re not covered by any document to prove you’re right. It’s better to have everything legal, even if this means you’d have to pay a bit more.

One of the cities I liked most during my travel in Europe was Amsterdam, in Netherlands. It looks so elegant, with its old, wooden buildings, with its canals spread all over the place, with its famous Red Quartier, where ladies sell themselves from shop windows. When I’ve been there, the weather was a bit against tourism, as it was really windy. Winds were blowing from everywhere, making walking very difficult, or extremely easy, depending on the direction you needed to follow: with or agains the wind. Amsterdam is a place where history speaks volumes about its inhabitants, about their way of living and about their mentality. From Anne Frank’s house, to the Tropaeum Museum, everything was so new to me, that I was very impressed. Hotels were not very expensive, and we got good quality for the money we paid. The food was good, but I can’t remember something specific. Sea food is everywhere and it is fresh and tasty. If you go to Europe, take a tour in Amsterdam. You’ll see it is worth.