Roommate Hunting

As I already mentioned in the Culture Shocks post a while ago, WG living (living with roommates) is a BIG thing here in Berlin. I myself share a flat with four other people, although the headcount is usually closer to 7, even 8 at times... :D But as life happens, people move on and move out and this is unfortunately the situation right now as one (+1) flat mate is moving out.

So, what do you do when someone moves out? Apparently, you host castings for a new roommate. Castings... Like casting actors for a movie, right...? Not being so familiar with this system yet, I decided to stick around and see what goes down at these events. But first I should give a little background into the whole search process itself though.

As you find yourself in a situation of having to find another roommate for the flat, the first thing you do is choose where you want to advertise your free room. There are a couple of different forums where this can be done, WG-Gesucht probably being the most popular. Then, you write up an ad, telling a little bit about the room and the WG as well as all the roommates to give possible applicants an idea of what kind of person the roommates are looking for. Photos are good to be included as well (at least I would like to get a glimpse first to see what I'm applying for). Applicants then respond to the ads via e-mail or phone and if they are lucky they get invited to castings.

For our castings the roommates had invited several people over at different times to talk to them 1 on 1 (more like 1 on 5) for a better chance of getting to know the person rather than having 10 applicants just browsing around trying to make small talk. All the applicants were of course given a tour of the apartment after which we sat down for coffee (I was forced to change to water after a few cups or I would have been up for 2 days straight...) and a little chat.

It was interesting to hear complete strangers tell their life stories over a cup of Joe in the hopes that this will be their new home. Never having had the chance to choose your roommates before, it was interesting to notice what kind of reactions the thought of living with different people brought up in me and what factors affected my opinion of whether I wanted to share an apartment with this person. As it turns out it can be really tough finding a good fit for the apartment and it might even take several castings to find the right one...

I've noticed that it's a tough market out there for people looking for rooms due to the sheer amount of other applicants, so when applying your application really has to stand out of the crowd somehow. A friend did a social experiment for fun while looking for a room; she made more 'official' applications and the same number of funny applications, just winging it. Can you guess which one got more invites to castings? ;)

However, I recently discovered a cool app that just might revolutionize the flat hunt by making it easier and more personal from the get-go. With flatts, WG search is done via video; people looking for a roommate post a video on the app and applicants apply for the room via video as well. Is there any better way to let your awesome personality shine through?! Just imagine how much time you can save when looking for a roommate by not having to go through all the e-mail applications and sometimes several castings to get an idea of the applicant? You can just browse through video applications in the comfort of your home, in your jammies (!!) and see which one could fit the best!

Pretty neat, huh?