Housing Market

If you didn’t get a room in any of the student halls or if you prefer to live in a private apartment, you will have to do your research – and face the competition in the housing market.

Search online

Online searches are the most convenient approach to house hunting. The photos posted to the websites will give you an impression of what the apartment looks like, and getting in touch with the landlord is easy.

Major house hunting websites offer a huge selection of apartments, and the search can be filtered to meet your requirements.
Students generally find specialized apartment rental sites very helpful, such as portals advertising flatshares (“WGs”, often specifically for students) or temporary/sublet rooms or apartments ("Zwischenmiete”).
One online marketplace for the region is the student housing website run by the general students’ committee (Allgemeiner Studierendenausschuss, AStA) at Ruhr-Universität.
Another avenue worth exploring is searching the social media for rooms and apartments. Be particularly critical of offers on social networks. (See below: Attention, Scam)
The city of Bochum as well as local building societies and housing associations and cooperatives likewise advertise accommodations on their websites.

Searching “offline”

Newspapers
In Bochum, most apartment listings are published in the newspapers Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) and Stadtspiegel; the latter is not available for purchase, but is distributed for free to all households on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Flyers & Exchange
It is recommended to keep the eyes and ears open around the campus: apartments are advertised on notice boards and via flyers, and many students look for housemates for their shared apartments.
Real Estate Agents
It is also possible to commission a real estate agent who will look for an accommodation on your behalf. If a lease agreement is signed, you will pay the agent his commission.

Attention, scam!

Unfortunately, there have been several cases of fraud involving international students looking for an apartment or a room in recent months!

Therefore, pay attention to the following:

Make sure that the person or company renting the accommodation actually exists, for example by doing a Google search.
Make sure that the accommodation really does exist and that the description and photos match the address, for example on Google Maps (use Street View).
Never send sensitive documents (passport, bank statements or similar).
Never send a deposit in advance without having signed a contract.
If it is a sublet in a student residence, contact the building management directly and ask whether the room will actually be rented out.
Be particularly critical of offers on social networks.

A guide to house hunting for newbies

Unless otherwise indicated, rental apartments in Germany are generally unfurnished, that means there won’t be any kitchen equipment or furniture. This is not the case for apartments or rooms that are sublet temporarily (“Zwischenmiete”). “Zwischenmiete” means: students who are going abroad for a limited period of time are looking for a tenant for their apartment or room.
In all cases, you need to establish whether utilities are included in your rent or not (“warm” vs. “kalt”). In addition to “cold”, i.e. basic rent (“Kaltmiete”), you will also have to pay for water, heating, electricity, phone/Internet connection, license fees, and service charges.
You must always ask which costs are already included in the rent.
Many rental ads use abbreviations and acronyms that even native speakers find incomprehensible. You can find an abbreviation directory (PDF) for house hunting here.
Most rental agreements stipulate a three-month termination notice. The tenant can terminate the lease sooner than the specified date only if a new tenant can be found who will take over the lease.
Bochum neighbors on seven other Ruhr towns. With its prime location in the heart of central Ruhr and an excellent public transport network, it is worth taking a look across the borders of the city: the green town of Witten, for example, is very close to Bochum; the town of Herne is connected to the city via the underground train U35.

Accommodation

Overview