Finding an apartment in Malta is relatively easy, finding a pet friendly apartment takes a bit more work and compromise. Without a pet you will most likely find what you want and where you want it within your budget. Having a sea view apartment in the Sliema, St Julian’s, Msida areas for example, will cost a lot more. I found apartments which were pretty outdated but charged 1800 euro a month just because it was sea front. If you want to live in Qwara, St Paul’s Bay or Bugibba for example getting a sea view apartment for 500 + euro a month is very doable. St Julian’s was our first choice but a bus to Sliema from the other areas listed above can take up to an hour with traffic and was not convenient for us when working in Sliema. If you have a car it takes about 20mins without traffic.
Below I have added some tips which I have learnt about while searching for our apartment.
Facebook Groups
There are quite a few Facebook groups which agents and tenants post on, it is a good idea to keep a close eye on a few of them and also post what it is that you are looking for. Be specific, tell them exactly what it is you want, how many people, long or short let, what is your budget, and so on.
Expats foreigners in Malta feel @ home
Expats foreigners in Malta – Rent it
European citizens visiting/living in Malta
The free letting property Malta page
Renting form Owner or Agent
- When contacting agents, contact as many as possible. See who is posting ads for apartments on Facebook and just send them messages directly. This is the best way to get a response. You can also contact the agents directly via their websites but in my experience sometimes they didn’t reply or were quite unhelpful. The agents them selfs though are a lot more interested in helping you.
- Be strict with agents, make sure they send you pictures and info before you go see the apartment because you could waste a lot of time seeing places you wouldn’t of been interested in if you saw the pictures.
- Don’t accept agents sending you apartments which cost more than the budget you stated. They will always try and get you to pay more as they will make more money. Tell the agent you will not deal with them if they send you apartments over your budget.
- When finding a home through an agent the costs are usually one months rent, one months deposit and 50% of one months rent, paid to the agent straight away after agreeing to take a place.
- Some agents are also unhelpful, for example we wanted a furnished, 2 bedroom apartment with an outside area terrace/balcony/yard in either Sliema, Msida, St Julian’s, Swieqi or Ta Xbiex area and were told by some that we will not get that in our budget. Some just blatantly ignored us when turning down their expensive suggestions or even asking simple questions, like how big is the balcony, for example. In the end though, we found what we wanted 1 block from the sea in St Julian’s close to restaurants, bars and 5mins walk from Paceville for 900 euro a month direct from an owner. So don’t believe when they tell you that you can’t get what you want.
- Also don’t trust their websites when looking for apartments from my experience they have a bunch of apartments listed on their website but a lot of them aren’t actually available on the date they are. Because tenants are still living there and could still renew the lease.
- Renting from an owner means only paying one months rent and one months deposit. There is no specific website dedicated to owners so the best places to keep checking is the Facebook groups listed above, or the Malta Park website, this is where I found ours. Go to, Property – Choose which kind of let you want and then in the search bar type in ‘Direct from owner‘ search through the listings and see what is available.
- Another good place to look is Just Landed agents and owners post here, it is much more user friendly than the Malta Park site so can be quite helpful.
- If you have a pet, I found that when contacting owners directly they were more likely to consider a pet. When the apartments were listed through some agents it seemed like some of them didn’t event bother to ask the owner. For example I got a message on Facebook from an agent telling me that they have listed new properties on their Facebook page. I replied asking which are pet friendly and all I got was “The ones that are listed as pet friendly are pet friendly” Some agents however are much better than others, I still found some really good ones who actually genuinely wanted to help me and worked for the potential money they could earn.
IMPORTANT : When viewing an apartment
- Check the water pressure as many places in Malta don’t have good water pressure
- Make sure you will be paying the correct rate on utilities, you want to be paying Residential rates not Domestic rates. If the rates are on domestic ask the landlord for this to be changed before you sign the lease, if he doesn’t want to then find another apartment! Don’t believe any story he might give you. Also make sure that the correct number of residents is listed as living in the apartment, because if its listed as 3 people and you are 2, you will pay more. In order to change the number of residents and rates you just need your passport, a copy of his ID and fill in Form H. More info can be found here
Hopefully this info will help you in your search, there is probably a lot more things which I don’t know about or didn’t experience but if I learn more I will be sure to update this page. For now happy house hunting.
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