Flatshare in Le Kram

In Le Kram, flatsharing is not limited to an apartment shared between friends. A good part of the supply takes the form of a room in a family home: a family letting a room freed up by a child who left to study or work elsewhere, a widow who prefers to have someone in the house, an owner fitting out two rooms on the ground floor with a shared bathroom. It is the cheapest way to live in the northern suburbs.

These listings are few at any given moment and often posted by private owners, whom you call directly. To see more offers, the page for flatsharing in Tunis governorate gathers every delegation in the capital.

Who looks for a room in Le Kram

The typical profile is a student enrolled at an institution in Tunis or the northern suburbs, who wants a low rent and a simple TGM commute. Next come interns and young employees on probation, who do not want to commit to a yearly lease, and workers transferred for a few months. Exhibitors and visitors at the fairs held at the Le Kram exhibition grounds, home to the Tunis International Fair, sometimes look for a room for a few days too.

Families letting a room almost always state the profile they want: a female student, a young working woman, or a single young man. Respect these indications; they spare both sides pointless visits.

In return, the family generally expects a discreet lifestyle: reasonable hours, few visitors, respect for shared spaces. That is the price of a low rent and a setting often safer and calmer than a flatshare between strangers.

Khereddine, Kram Ouest, Sidi Frej: where the rooms are

Rooms in family homes are found mainly in the districts of family houses. Khereddine, an old district near La Goulette, and Kram Ouest, more working-class and dense, supply the largest share, with modest rents and local shops. Sidi Frej mixes multi-storey houses and small blocks, and offers both formulas, a room with a family or a shared apartment. Kram Est, closer to the sea and Carthage Salammbô, has fewer rooms, generally more expensive.

For a flatshare between young people in an S+2 or S+3, look instead at the page for shared apartments in Le Kram, geared more towards the developments of Sidi Frej and El Bouhaira.

What the rent covers

A room in a family home is usually furnished: bed, wardrobe, sometimes a desk. Ask whether kitchen access is free or limited to certain hours, whether the bathroom is shared with the family, and whether water, electricity and internet are included in the price. These points make all the difference between two offers at a similar rent. Some owners also provide meals, which changes the budget completely.

Payment is most often monthly, with a month in advance or a small deposit. Even for a room, a simple dated and signed note setting out the rent, the deposit and the notice period protects both parties.

Choosing well and starting well

Visit by day and in the evening. By day for the light and the damp, common in houses near the sea and the lake; in the evening for the street noise and the walk from the TGM station, Khereddine or Le Kram, as trains become scarcer late in the evening.

Rooms free up mainly at the end of the academic year and in September. Start looking at the end of August for an October start. And if after a few months you want a place of your own, the page of rentals in Le Kram brings together studios, apartments and floors of houses.