I’ve spoken before (many times!) about renting in Malta but as our 3rd move (and 4th apartment) looms closer I thought I’d do a little update. Belair Real Estate Malta has been our company of choice ever since the first time we used them (July 2010 I believe!) and in a world of fickelness and fast passing fads (since then we’ve had 3 different apartments, I’ve changed my hair from brown, to blonde to black, we’ve both changed jobs at least once…) it’s nice to have something solid and unchanging. One agent in particular is our go-to guy, so for his contact details please email me joeandharryabroad@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to put you in touch with him!
Buying or finding somewhere to rent, without a doubt, has to be the most stressful thing about moving. Before we discovered Belair we had had many emails ignored by other agents, shown properties well over our budget, been told what we’d like and where we’d like to live and had pretty much given up hope of finding a helpful estate agent who would just listen to what we wanted and just do their best. At the time we didn’t have jobs so our budget was low which I guess is why a lot of agents didn’t even bother, and the others showed us things way too expensive.
Then we were walking back to our friends apartment one night and wandered past Belair which we’d neither noticed before or heard of so wandered in, sat down at Niki’s desk and only just managed to refrain from throwing myself at his feet and screaming “HELP US!”. We gave him our specifications (cheap, two bed, modern as possible, close to Sliema) and within 24 hours we’d seen 4 apartments, taken two second viewings and had signed a lease. He even picked us and all our stuff up in his car and moved us in.
He was friendly, honest, was never pushy and actually made the process a lot of fun. We always go back to Niki and Belair for every single move and would recommend them to anyone looking to buy or rent a new place. Niki is not just an estate agent, he is a genuinely nice guy and I think that’s the ethos that Belair really tries hard to stick to. If you like them on facebook you’ll see that they’re a fun loving, helpful bunch. I really love their job advertisement “The pushy, sleazy, insistent type need not apply”.
So if you’re looking to buy or rent in Malta, be sure to check out the Belair website (updated much more than most agents out here who have properties that have been rented out for years!), like them on facebook for frequent updates and email me for Niki’s personal contact details- although I’d happily put my faith in any of the Belair staff!
What is your experience of estate agents in a foreign country? I’d love to hear your stories, wherever in the world you are!
If you use Belair, be sure to mention the blog sent you, and let me know on Facebook!
Great post! I agree that it can be hard to find a good agent here. If you aren’t swimming in money it seems a lot of them don’t even want to give you the time of day! When we were looking for flats a couple years ago it was so frustrating! We ended up using Dhalia, our agent was really nice and very helpful. But they are the only ones we had used so I can’t really say I’d recommend them but the one guy we dealt with was nice in St Pauls Bay office.
Thats good you found someone helpful pretty much straight off, we had such a nightmare. One woman turned up 2 hours late and was then rude to me when she did arrive. Another guy set the time/date and then just didn’t show, and most just ignored us. We even went in to a few, chatted gave our specs and they took our number saying they’d call and just never did. So we were over the moon when Belair were so helpful and wouldn’t risk the stress of trying to use someone else now! x
We met BELAIR on our last visit but despite several emails over the past months trying to get contact to let them know we were moving out soon and wanted to start chatting…. Nothing in response. Guess its luck of the draw. We tries Frank Salt and they just laughed when I suggested a price range and location. I’m Maltese and know a fair ammount about pricing there sp not easily fooled, but I sound English so I get the tourist treatment. We found Lorraine at remax sliema to be the one. Really helpful, communicative and willing to go back and forth over the past months even though we haven’t moved over yet. I guess we will see in 6 weeks the reality.
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Oh no that’s a real shame, I don’t for a second think it would have been intentionally ignored. I’ll mention it to them though just so they can check in case it’s a problem from their end not receiving or something. I think we went with Lorraine before and personally I didn’t love her, she kept speaking about me like I wasn’t there (‘You can’t live here because SHE will get attacked by immigrants’) but everyones experiences are different!
Sounds like shes doing a good job for you, if you find it doesn’t work out when you get here though, drop me an email and I’ll put you directly in contact with Niki, CC’d in myself also so I can chase it up to make sure you get a reply!
I’m surprised your moving! I thought you really liked your current place.
We do really love the place but we’ve decided we want to save up to buy a place in the next few years :) as the rent is quite expensive on our current place it doesn’t give us room to save so we’re going to suck it up and go cheaper for a while. Will be so sad to leave but it’s for the greater good :) xx
Hi Harri, I was wondering if there are no long-term lets available in Malta? Good luck with your house-hunting
Long term let here would be considered six months to a year and most places would be up for this kind of lease. If you wanted to stay longer then most landlords would be happy to keep you as it saves them having to find someone! Are you struggling to find something? X