Shared houses in Ariana

Sharing a house rather than a flat means trading the lift and the gated residence for a terrace, sometimes a garden, larger rooms and neighbours further away. In the governorate of Ariana, this formula takes two very different forms: a room with a family, in a family home where the owners still live, and a house or villa floor rented in full by a group of students or young professionals.

Listings are posted by private individuals, owners or flatmates, whom you call directly. Supply varies with the season and is concentrated in the south of the governorate, in the villa neighbourhoods of Ariana Ville and Soukra. Further north and west, shared houses exist, but mostly travel by word of mouth.

A room with a family, the most common formula

Many families in Borj Louzir, Ettaamir, El Menzah 6 or Ariana Supérieure have had an empty room since a child left home. They let it furnished, often with access to the kitchen, to a female student, an intern or a young civil servant. The rent usually includes water and electricity, which makes the budget predictable, and it often stays lower than a room in a flat in Ennasr.

In return, you live by the house rules: curfew, visitors, use of the kitchen, sometimes a stated preference for a woman or a man. These conditions are normal, but it is better to hear them over the phone before going there. This formula reassures the parents of a student arriving from the interior of the country for a first year. It suits less well someone who comes home late or often has friends round: in that case, an independent floor is a better target.

Villa floors and whole houses shared by several

The second formula brings three or four flatmates together in independent accommodation. The villa floor, with its separate entrance, is very common in Soukra and the Menzah: generous floor areas, a terrace and a rent that, divided among several people, stays reasonable. The older houses of central Ariana, El Menzah 5 or Nouvelle Ariana play the same role for tighter budgets, at the cost of buildings that need a careful look for damp and plumbing. The page for shared houses in Soukra and the one for shared houses in Ariana Ville show the two faces of this market.

In Raoued, a few recent houses in Jaafer are shared by El Ghazala students. In Cité Ettadhamen and El Mnihla, people tend to share a house floor among friends or cousins who have come to work in Tunis, at rents among the lowest in Greater Tunis. Sidi Thabet and Kalaat El Andalous have almost no supply of this kind.

To compare two houses, bring everything down to a monthly cost per person: rent, electricity, water, gas, internet and, if needed, a taxi home in the evening. A cheap villa in Soukra far from any transport can cost more, by the end of the month, than a pricier floor near the Ariana metro. Winter matters too: a large, poorly insulated house is hard to heat, and gas or electricity bills climb from December.

What to settle before moving in

A shared house takes more organisation than a flat. The garden, the terrace, the water tank or the water heater, bottled gas: each item needs someone in charge. Ask the owner who looks after the garden and who pays for repairs, and check that the STEG meter can handle several air conditioners in summer, otherwise power cuts become a source of arguments.

On the contract side, have it specified who holds the lease, whether the owner accepts several occupants and what happens when one of them leaves. With a family, a simple written note stating the rent, what it covers and the notice period is enough. Keep a copy of the deposit receipt, with the date and the owner's signature. To widen the search to shared flats, the page for all flatsharing in Ariana gathers the offers, and those who prefer a house to themselves will look at houses for rent in Ariana.