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Hi Ameerah,

I am Patricia, working with Numont school (numontschool.es) within their blog, are you interested in exchanging experiences? We are a familiar British school in Madrid.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Hey everyone, Just wanted to share my housing disaster from moving to Barcelona this year, partly to vent but mostly to help anyone else coming here as an international student. I wish I had known how bad the accommodation situation really is before I arrived.

So I鈥檓 a 22-year-old student from the UK, here for an Erasmus year in political science. I arrived mid-august thinking I was early enough to find a room before classes started. I had this optimistic vision of getting a cozy flat near uni, and really living it up, Yeah. Not at the start.

It started with rising prices

When I first started browsing Idealista and Badi back in June, I saw tons of decent rooms around 鈧�450鈥撯偓500. I wasn鈥檛 worried. But by August, those were either taken or turned into 鈥渟ummer tourist lets.鈥� The few that were left had jumped to 鈧�650鈥撯偓750 for tiny rooms, some without windows or shared with 4鈥�5 strangers. And the worst part? Even the overpriced listings would disappear within hours. I鈥檇 message someone, and by the time they replied (if they ever did), the place was already gone.

I landed with no confirmed flat. I had an Airbnb for five days, thinking that would buy me time. After that, I bounced between four different sofas and one inflatable mattress over almost four weeks.

A girl I met during orientation let me crash on her couch for a week, but i didnt want to give the impression of being a hobosexual. Then I stayed with a guy from a student group chat who turned out to be hosting three other students in his living room. No privacy, barely any sleep.

Thank god I didn鈥檛 bring all my stuff

What saved me, honestly, was using this student storage ***. They鈥檙e based here in Barcelona and were recommended in a student group. I鈥檇 dropped off a few boxes with them back in June before flying home for the summer. Clothes, books, kitchen stuff, the kind of stuff that would鈥檝e been a nightmare to drag around while couch-surfing. They stored everything i needed and once I finally found a semi-decent room in Eixample (鈧�600/month, cash only, no contract, yes, I鈥檓 slightly terrified), I just messaged them and they delivered my stuff straight to my new address. It was one of the only things that went smoothly, honestly.

What I wish I knew earlier: 鈥⒙� 聽 Start looking in June, seriously. July and August are chaos. 鈥⒙� 聽 Don鈥檛 rely on just Idealista, Facebook groups, WhatsApp chats, uni notice boards,聽 you have to be everywhere. 鈥⒙� 聽 Never send money without seeing the place (I nearly got scammed by someone asking for a 鈥渉olding deposit鈥�). 鈥⒙� 聽 Don鈥檛 bring all your belongings at once unless your housing is sorted. I don鈥檛 know how I would鈥檝e coped without local storage. 鈥⒙� 聽 Have backup options. Lots of them.

Barcelona is beautiful, the people are warm, and the city has so much to offer, but the housing crisis is very, very real. I love it here now, but the first month nearly broke me.