Some pictures of our apartment

Here are some of the photos I took from our apartment back in Madrid. Three of us were living here (Three bedrooms and one bathroom) and as Titinart said it was far from the university but with an access to Cercanias, it became easier. Just be careful of your extra utility expenses, keep track of your bills coz' you don't want your deposit to be deducted at the end.

Warin

1. Bedroom

2. Kitchen

3. Common area

accommodation in Madrid

Hello everyone

About our living experience in Madrid, we got the apartment through Aluni like most of people. Our address was calle Avenida Albufera 279 Madrid. It's in the southern part of Madrid, quite close to Miguel Hernandez metro station on line 1 (just 5 mins walk). The rent was not high, 363 Euros included internet and other utilities, but it's so far from school. In the first two months, we traveled to school by metro and it took us around 1 hour because we needed to change the train at Tribunal station to line 10 to reach school at Gregorio Maranon station. As you can see from metro map, there're more than 10 stops before arriving school. It's quite tiring and time consuming.

But then we discovered the better way to travel to school. It's another kind of train called "Cercanias". Cercanias has different route from metro. If you notice in metro map, you'll see the little red circle sign indicating which station has Cercanias train. This train is faster and cleaner. Moreover, you can travel with your Abono monthly pass. So, to travel to school by cercanias I took metro 1 stop to Sierra de Guadalupe and changed to Cercanias then just 6 stops to arrive at Nuevos Ministerios station. The travel time was reduced to 30 mins.

So, if you want to find accommodation with cheap rent, you have to live quite far from school and city center. We would suggest you to at least live within zone A and close to metro station that has Cercanias so you won't be so tired travelling to school. Another important thing is to have supermarket near to your place because you will need to buy your food and supplies at least every week. In my area, we couldn't find any supermarket around Miguel Hernandez station so we had to take metro or bus to nearby supermarket. There're big supermarkets at Buenos Aires station and Sierra de Guadalupe and one small supermarket at Alto del Arenal.

Good luck with your search ^_^

Titinart and Warin

 

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my accommodation was quite different

 

Unlike most people in our class, I didn't find my accommodation through aluni, and I found it on the website of segundomano, which means second hand. I shared with 3 other girls, there were a few problems but it was an interesting experience, I lived between metro Estrecho in a blue line which directly goes to Sol, and Francos Rodriguea-line 7- which goes to school. So the location was really good and the price was good too. But we didn't have a contract, so it was a little risky, since they might not give your deposit money back, or you can't be sure about what they are going to provide you in the house.

 

Aluni is a safe option, if you're not that much flexible yet- you should be come one, if you want to survive this master!- and alittle afraid of leaving your country, go with aluni options. But if you have a little sense of adventure and knows a little spanish, you can definetly find great apartments in good locations with a really good price.

 

Remember that Madrid is a big city, and every year lots of students came there to study, not only the European erasmus students, but even from inside Spain. If you want to catch the good oppurtunities in accommodation, you should hurry, since because as you know or would know, the higher the demand, the higher the price. If you have someone there, ask them to go and check the houses for you since this is the best way of renting an apartment.

 

Ofcourse it is really good to have your place near school, but remember that public transportation in madrid, especially metro is realy good and you don't have to worry that much, to pass each station by metro usually takes 2-3 minutes, so if you're 10 stations away, you are 20-30 minutes away from the school. so being close to metro is almost as important to being close to the supermarket!

 

 

my accomodation in madrid!

Calle de los Pinillas 8, or The Italian Girls Apartment.
 
As far as I experienced, living in Madrid can mean 2 things. Either you find a place shared with 8-10 people in an extremely central area like Lavapies or Sol, or you go, price being more or less the same, for a wider room, in a 3-4 people flat in a less central area.
It's a matter of trade off, as you soon will learn in IMIM :-) :living in a 24/7 party atmosphere or having a bit of space and quiet more spending some time on the metro to reach the city center?
Considering this, the Italian Girls Apartment (me and Chiara) was the perfect option II: wide, tidy, calm...and about half an hr metro away form the center, in the nice quarter of Valdebernardo. Never regretted the choice actually! (we shared the flat with two other amazing girls, and by the way the metro system in Madrid is really impeachable)
The channel we used to find this accomodation was Aluni, the agency conventioned with UPM, whose offer is generally made by average price (350-400 eu/month)-calm-a bit far from the city center accomodations. If you're looking for other kind of solutions, sites as Loquo or Easypiso can be more helpful!
In bocca al lupo!
 
Elena and Chiara

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Accomodation in Madrid

Hi,

As for my accomodation, I stayed at Calle Francisco Navacerrada 39, very close to the metro stations "Manuel Becerra" (Metro lines 2 and 6) and "Las Ventas" (Metro lines 2 and 5). There were a lot of advantages to living at this place, because it was very well conected to the city center (Within 20 minutes I was able to go to "Sol", the exact city center) and still it was very close to school. In fact, bus number 12 passed just about 200 meters away from my place and stopped right in front of the University.

Regarding the location of the flat, I can tell you it was in a residential area near park "Eva Perón" where it was possible to find three supermarkets, lots of pharmacies, two hospitals, at least three chinese stores (Where you can find whatever you need), and many more useful places. Therefore, I strongly recommend you this area, as it is one of the most convenient in terms of location.

How I got to know about the flat? As some of my friends who have already shared their experiences, I did it through ALUNI. The prices in this area ranged from about 370,00 € + utilities (Usually 30,00 €) up to 420,00 € + utilities.

Good luck with your search!

My accommodation in Madrid

I found my apartment from aluni. The apartment is in Calle del General Cabrera, quite close to Bernabeu stadium. 5 mins away from metro station Santiago Bernabeu. About half an hour away from UPM by walking. The room is big and well furnished. The enviournment is quite and beautiful. There is even a maid who will help you do the cleaning and washing.
The drawback is the high price. 430 euros for everything. And also you need to live with the landlord and her son. They are nice persons, but the landlady doesn't like Asian food, so if you cook some spicy food or something with strong smell, there might be some problems.

Feng

accomodation in Madrid

Hi,

I will tell you a few words about my experience from Madrid.
Firstly, Madrid is great city. I never had better parties, first metro at 6 in the morning was very important and our official trasnportation :) Therefore I suggest you to be close to metro stations when choosing the accommodation. Faculty is close to Gregor Maranon and Nuevos Ministerios stations as you probably know. So, it is not easy to be very close to the University, but being close to some of the metro stations is possible to find and one of have to things.
I took the option to book flat through Aluni agency. My overall experience is quite good. You have to keep in mind that you are not the only customer for them and that a lot of people are serching for the flat so from time to time they are a bit slow to respond but most important thing is that everything that was in the contract they fulfiled. I was located very close to the faculty, near the station Cuatro Caminos which is very good solution because it is not so far from the center and it has 3 metro lines which is perfect. From the faculty it was 15 minutes walking distance, when you are late on exam or something it was 10 minutes downhill running :) All in all, i did not buy Abono transportes (monthly ticket) which is about 50e and I spent around 20e monthly so let's say I saved 30e per month because of location. My room was 458e a month (included expences and internet) so full price, which would be a higher price for Aluni acoomodation. I would say that prices are going around 400e up and down but now i think you know it better than me. The street name was calle de Maudes, you can check it on the map.
Maybe the worst thing was that I had 5 more flat mates. In the end we became good friends and it is good to practice language because people were mostly talking spanish but also there were some bad sides like kitchen. You can judge alone what you need, I mainly tried to tell you my view about location.
Fianlly, if you can be close to Cuatro Caminos station, having in mind University and the centre I would warmly recomend it...

Milos