Shared flats in Sfax Ville

Flatsharing has no tradition in Sfax, and yet it has always existed under another name: the "students'" apartment let to three or four by an owner who prefers quiet young people to a large family, or the S+3 (three bedrooms plus a living room) that a young doctor shares with a colleague for the length of the residency. In the Sfax Ville delegation, the closest to the faculties, the university hospitals and the offices of the centre, this formula mainly concerns the buildings of Bab Bhar, the route de Tunis and the edges of the medina.

This page gathers the listings for shared apartments in Sfax Ville: a spare room in an apartment already occupied, or a whole apartment published to be shared. Supply is still thin and almost entirely published by private owners or by the students themselves; agencies rarely get involved. To see the listings from the other delegations, including those on the route de Soukra near the campus, all the shared flats in the Sfax governorate are on one page.

Who shares an apartment in Sfax Ville

First the students from the south and centre of the country, from Gabès, Médenine, Sidi Bouzid or Kairouan, who have no place in a hall of residence and often group together by home town. Then the hospital residents and young healthcare professionals, numerous in Sfax, who want to sleep ten minutes from the hospital. Finally the executives transferred to the industrial zones or the banks, for a first year, long enough to get to know the city and choose a district.

The apartments concerned are mostly S+2 and S+3 flats in older buildings of the centre, with large rooms that are easy to separate, or more recent apartments on the route de Tunis whose owners accept several occupants as long as one person signs the lease. For a whole apartment to rent, without sharing, the page of apartments to rent in Sfax Ville is far broader.

What a room costs, and when to look

A room in a shared apartment in the centre often comes to between 200 and 350 DT (Tunisian dinars) a month including bills, more for a single room in a recent apartment with a lift and parking. That is well below a studio, which remains rare in Sfax and rents dear for its size. The market plays out in a few weeks: places free up in June, at the end of the exams, and fill up between late August and mid-September. Looking in October means taking what is left, often the room without a window on the street.

Sfax owners almost always ask for a deposit and a guarantor, sometimes the rent by the quarter in advance for students. Clarify before moving in who holds the contract, how the deposit is split, and what happens if one of the flatmates leaves during the year: that is the source of most disputes.

The rules to set between flatmates

A shared apartment in Sfax raises three concrete questions. Water and the pressure on the upper floors in summer, solved by a tank and a pump: ask whether the building has them. Electricity bills, which climb fast with an air conditioner in every bedroom: agree on a split from the outset. And the building rules: some management committees in the centre refuse flatshares with too many people, and the owner does not always say so during the viewing.

A flatshare that lasts in Sfax comes down to a few things: a contract in everyone's name or in one name with clear sub-agreements, a rota for cleaning the shared areas, and the owner's agreement on guests. Many Bab Bhar owners live in the building or next door and drop by unannounced.

Room in a family home and shared floor

Sharing an apartment is only one of the formulas. In the districts of houses such as Bassatine, Sidi Abbes or Cité Mohamed Ali, you more often find a room in a family home, with a separate entrance, or a floor of a house shared between two or three students with the owner on the ground floor. These offers, and those of the small private hostels, are gathered on the flatshare in Sfax Ville page, which brings together every category.