Apartments for rent in El Hamma

In El Hamma, a flat to rent is rarely in a block. Most of the time it is the upper floor of a house, built by a family on top of its own ground floor, with a separate entrance and an outside staircase. The town, some thirty kilometres west of Gabès on the Kébili road, grew up around its palm grove and hot springs, and its rental stock follows that story: family houses extended one floor at a time, far from the developer residences you see on the coast.

Renting a flat in El Hamma mainly concerns three kinds of people: civil servants posted to the delegation, young local couples moving out of their parents' house, and employees working in Gabès who would rather pay less rent and commute every day. The listings on Houni come almost entirely from private owners, whom you call directly. On the day we write this, the online offer fits on a single page, with half a dozen listings; to widen the search, all the apartments for rent in Gabès governorate let you compare with the regional capital, Mareth or Métouia.

Farhat Hached, El Ksar and the East and South sectors

Farhat Hached is the sector where listings come up most often. It is close to the shops and government offices, and many houses there already have a finished upper floor. A flat to rent in El Hamma in this sector suits anyone who wants to do everything on foot: market, café, shared taxi to Gabès.

El Ksar, the old core of the town, offers older homes, sometimes the upper floor of a traditional dar, on narrower streets. Rents there are often the lowest, in return for plainer finishes and harder parking. The East and South sectors, more recent, line up estate houses with an upper floor, where you find roomier S+2 and S+3 flats, sometimes with a garage on the ground floor.

What is on offer and at what price

S+1 and S+2 flats dominate. An S+2 to rent in El Hamma on a house's upper floor often goes for well below Gabès town rents, and rarely tops a few hundred dinars a month, depending on condition, floor area and whether there is air conditioning. Furnished lets exist but are rare: most owners let unfurnished, by the year, to steady tenants they sometimes know by reputation.

The studio is barely a local product. A single person will more likely find a room with a shower room on the ground floor of a house, or a modest S+1. If you are after a cheap flat to rent in El Hamma, look at whole houses too: house rentals in El Hamma sometimes show rents close to those of a single floor, with the courtyard thrown in.

Heat, water, meters: the useful checks

El Hamma is an inland southern town, and summer there is much hotter than on the seafront in Gabès. Visit in the early afternoon if you can: a floor under a poorly insulated flat roof becomes hard to live in come July. Ask whether air conditioning is fitted and who services it.

Check the meters as well. On the upper floor of a family house, water and electricity are sometimes shared with the ground floor, which soon leads to arguments over the bill. Separate STEG and SONEDE meters avoid that problem. Lastly, even between neighbours, a written contract setting out the rent, the deposit and the term protects both sides.

When to look and how to widen the search

The market moves mainly at the end of summer, once postings of civil servants and teachers are announced, and at the start of summer, when some owners keep the floor for their children back from abroad. September is the most contested month. A decent listing gone in a few days is not unusual.

If nothing fits, the page of property to rent in El Hamma puts the delegation's flats and houses on a single list, so you can see at a glance everything being let in town.