Apartments for rent in Jendouba

In Jendouba governorate, a rented apartment is not the default way to live. Most families live in houses, and apartment blocks are limited to a few neighbourhoods of the main town, the residences of Tabarka and the centres of Ain Draham and Bou Salem. The people looking for an apartment are therefore easy enough to describe: students, transferred civil servants, couples without children, and in summer holidaymakers who want the sea or the cool mountain air.

These groups do not look at the same towns or follow the same calendar. A studio for rent in Jendouba is searched for in September, a furnished S+1 in Tabarka is booked in spring, and an apartment in Ain Draham lets as well for the February snow as for the cool July nights. Listings are mostly posted by owners, whom you call directly, and the supply varies from week to week.

The main town, a market that starts with the academic year

Jendouba town concentrates the year-round demand. Its university institutions draw students from the neighbouring governorates every autumn, and the regional administrations, the hospital and the secondary schools bring in staff who stay two or three years. Small three or four storey buildings are found mainly in the neighbourhoods that grew up around the centre, towards Jendouba Sud and El Ferdous, in the Jendouba Nord delegation. Recently built S+1 and S+2 flats are let there, rarely with a lift, often with a balcony over the street.

The studio for rent in Jendouba is less a studio in a residence than an independent room fitted out in a house. Many students prefer to share an S+2 between two or three, which remains the cheapest option. Rents in the main town are among the lowest in the north of the country: an unfurnished S+2 rarely goes above a few hundred dinars a month. What costs you is arriving late. From mid-September, the decent properties have been taken.

Tabarka and Ain Draham, rents that change with the season

On the coast, the logic is reversed. Most apartments in Tabarka were bought for summer letting, in the residences of the tourist zone or in the buildings of the centre, and they are let by the night or by the week from June to September. The detail of neighbourhoods and summer rates is on the page of apartments for rent in Tabarka. Out of season, an owner will often accept a nine or ten month lease at a low rent, provided they get the property back before July. For a teacher or a customs officer posted to the coast, it is often the best deal in the governorate.

Ain Draham works on a smaller scale. The few apartments in the centre, above the shops, are let year-round to civil servants, or by the week to families coming up to Kroumirie during the holidays. A mountain apartment is judged on its heating above all: a poorly insulated home under a flat roof becomes hard going from December to March.

Bou Salem, Fernana, Oued Meliz: the valley towns

In the small towns of the Medjerda valley and the foothills, an apartment takes the form of a house floor let by a family. Bou Salem, on the railway line and the road to Béja, suits people who work between the two governorate capitals. Fernana and Oued Meliz offer house floors at even lower rents, with the drawback of a very limited stock and louage journeys to reach Jendouba. If you find nothing among apartments, look at the houses for rent in Jendouba governorate: a ground floor with a courtyard sometimes costs barely more than an S+2.

Before signing and paying the deposit

Ask for a written contract, even for one academic year: the term, the rent, the deposit, usually one month, and the inventory of condition. Have it stated whether rent is due over nine or twelve months, whether the apartment is let furnished and with what equipment, and whether the water and electricity meters are separate from the owner's. A shared meter almost always ends in an argument at the first summer bill.

The valley has very hot summers and damp winters. Look for traces of damp in the corners, ask whether there is a reversible air conditioner or a gas water heater, and beware of an uninsulated top floor in July. On a ground floor in the low-lying neighbourhoods, ask the neighbours whether water has already come in during floods. If you are still hesitating between several types of property, the page of homes for rent in Jendouba governorate brings houses and apartments together, and the full range of apartments for rent in Tunisia lets you compare with other regions.