Finding an Apartment in Nice, France

My love affair with Nice began during our first visit to the city in September 2022. Our second visit in April 2023 sealed it even more. It wasn’t until the summer or fall of 2023 where Nik and I gave serious thought about moving back to Europe and choosing Nice as our city to live in. After visiting in December 2023 we knew it’s what we wanted to do and we decided to use the services of The Adrian Leeds Group to help find an apartment.

The Apartment Search

During the early stay at home portion of Covid, Nik and I watched endless travel videos and a lot of the House Hunters International backlog.

Our favorite cities to watch had some of the better property consultants and enjoyable personalities and that included Adrian Leeds, of The Adrian Leeds Group, one of the more prominent relocation companies in France geared towards Americans. She splits her time between Paris and Nice and has a staff of property consultants in both cities to help clients find their desired home, whether to rent or buy.

Not knowing more than a couple words of French and having heard it can be challenging to rent in France as foreigners without French income we chose to work with them. This post will talk about the process and the apartment we ultimately rented. Come along for the journey!

Related: All of our Nice, France Blog Posts

Online Consultation

The first step of working with The Adrian Leeds Group is having a two-hour online consultation with either Adrian or her operations manager, Patty Sadauskas. There is a large difference in pricing so we booked the consultation with Patty.

Nik and I are the first to admit we’re pretty low maintenance when it comes to many things, especially what we want in an apartment, so that helped during our chat. Patty was great to talk with and screen-shared a pretty good apartment website, Bien’ici, so we were able to get an idea what was out there. Following our call, we got an extensive email that recapped the conversation, answered some of our questions more in depth and gave us numerous helpful links for the process of moving to France.

Timeline wise, our consultation took place in late August 2024 and Patty said the search would start in January since we were looking to move to Nice by March 1. (Most friends and readers of the website will know that Nik and I got to Europe in mid-September 2024 and travelled for two weeks in France before settling in Barcelona, Spain for four and a half months.)

In mid-November 2024 we signed a couple documents committing to use ALG to help us in the apartment search. By that time, Nik and I knew we wanted to rent an apartment with two bedrooms, air conditioning, some sort of outdoor space, such as a balcony, and to be in a building with an elevator (for the aging Koval the dog.) We were flexible in terms of renting a furnished or unfurnished apartment, it really depended on the apartment and the price of rent.

Preparing a Dossier

Renting an apartment in France is nearly impossible without a dossier. The dossier is a file containing all of your paperwork which is generally often presented before even viewing an apartment. The dossier includes required documentation, for example, proof of identity, proof of your earnings or taxable income, a letter of motivation, etc. The letter of motivation is almost like a cover letter describing yourself and explaining why you want to rent in France and that you’ll be responsible tenants.

The long-running joke is that you don’t pick the apartment (or the landlord); they pick you.

An important part of the dossier in France is that as a renter you’ll generally need a guarantor, a person or entity that agrees to pay the rent if the tenant cannot. This system provides landlords with financial security, making it easier for them to accept tenants and so it protects landlords in case of unpaid rent. It also helps landlords comply with strict tenant protection laws that make evictions challenging. We got our guarantor through SmartGarant and the process included uploading various financial and employment information to their portal. After a day or so we got approved for renting an apartment up to a certain amount.

The Search

Since we knew a dossier would be required, Nik and I pulled together most of the documents by early January, just in time to be paired with an ALG search consultant. After a quick email exchange, we had our first video call with our consultant, Katie. Right after the call, she created a WhatsApp group chat so the three of us could communicate more easily. Katie would be our eyes in Nice while we were still in Barcelona, and being on European time definitely made everything easier.

While Katie searched on her end, Nik and I also kept an eye on the rental websites and would send her links of places that caught our attention. We passed over most options for one reason or another, and it started to feel like slim pickings. Then, about two weeks in, we came across a listing for a new, furnished apartment with two bedrooms and one bath. The photos and description weren’t great, but it still caught our interest. So on January 25 Katie went to view this particular apartment, located in the Musiciens Quarter of Nice. Spoiler alert, we ended up renting it!

Katie arrived for the showing, an apartment on the third of six floors, and video-called us while she walked through it. Her excitement for the unit and building were a good indicator of a great find considering the inventory in the current market. Turns out the apartment is actually two-bedrooms and two-bathrooms, a very pleasant surprise!

The Apartment

As Katie was showing us the apartment during our video call, we knew almost right away that we wanted the apartment. Katie said that the landlord also had the same apartment layout on the floor below. So Katie showed us that unit as well. We chose the third floor unit to be a little higher for the view from the terrace. And whichever unit we weren’t choosing, Katie was going to offer to another ALG client.

I don’t exactly remember how long, but it felt like Katie spent several hours at the building getting all of the details from the listing agent and learned the landlord had an available apartment on the fifth floor that she was going to get another client into! Gets even more wild. There was yet a fourth apartment (!) available from the same landlord, but without a terrace or second bedroom. And you guessed it, also rented to yet another ALG client.

Katie sent our dossier to the agent, and we got approved almost instantly. While they prepared the lease, we locked in a renters insurance policy, since it was required to move forward. It took about a week for the lease to come through, and once we had it, we uploaded it to SmartGarant. Then came a few more days of waiting for the landlord’s confirmation. The whole wait felt like a month, even though it was probably closer to two weeks.

The apartment was on the higher end of our rental budget, but since it’s brand new and furnished, we felt okay about it. Compared to what we paid for our two-bed, one-bath place back in Chicago, it was worth it. We have a one year lease that runs until the middle of February 2026, but we hope to stay living in Nice for much longer.

Although, who furnishes a rental with an incredibly nice couch that is white? Between the dog being on it and our everyday use, we keep it covered, just to be safe.

Located on the third floor of an elevator building, our apartment has an amazing terrace space that spans the length of the apartment and is accessible from both bedrooms and the living room. The only negative about it, no grill is allowed.

Since the apartment was brand new, some of the furniture didn’t arrive on time. The delayed furniture included the TV, coffee table, dining table and terrace furniture. Somehow though, the dining chairs were there on move-in day. All six of them! Now that everything has arrived, we’re very happy with how the apartment looks….even if the table delivery was a disaster and that the coffee table wouldn’t have been our pick for the space.

Add in central air, other modern amenities and a quiet street, this place really checked a lot of our boxes.

The second bedroom features a trundle bed where the lower part pulls out and pops up on legs to sit level with the top. Come visit us!

ALG also offers services to assist in getting your internet and other utilities set up. These are all additional costs, of course. Since our French speaking skills are non-existent, it was worth the assistance with the internet, electric and mobile phone.

Nice is Nice

We’re thrilled with how our search turned out, and working with The Adrian Leeds Group made a huge difference. We absolutely love it here. There are even two parks nearby that are perfect for walking Koval. He’s adjusted really well to the new neighborhood and even came face-to-face with his alter ego.

An added perk is our 15 minute walk straight down to The Prom and the beach. Can’t beat it.

Stay tuned as we’ve got more to share – like how the move from Barcelona went, what it’s been like settling into life in Nice and the unique history of the building itself!