Apartments for rent in Cité El Khadhra

For an S+2 in good condition in the Cité Olympique, expect 900 to 1,300 DT a month. An S+2 means two bedrooms plus a living room, the Tunisian way of counting. Not cheap, but ten minutes from avenue Habib Bourguiba and five from the Centre Urbain Nord, few districts offer apartments this spacious at that price. Renting in the Cité Olympique rests on that balance: central without being noisy, old without being run down.

The listings here cover the Cité El Khadhra delegation: the Cité Olympique, the historic Cité El Khadhra and the Khaireddine Pacha sector. Owners and agencies post directly, and the number shown is the advertiser's. Villa floors, which are rarer, appear in all the homes to rent in Cité El Khadhra.

The Cité Olympique blocks: what you are actually renting

The stock was largely built around the 1967 Mediterranean Games, alongside the stadium and the pool. The blocks run to three or four storeys, with dual aspect apartments, separate kitchens and balconies: layouts nobody draws any more. S+3 flats often exceed 110 sq m, and the rent per square metre stays below El Menzah 1, across avenue Hédi Nouira.

The downside of age: no lift in a good number of blocks, original wiring in apartments never renovated, and common areas that depend on the goodwill of neighbours for want of a management company. A renovated apartment to rent in Cité Olympique, Tunis, with air conditioning and a fitted kitchen, costs 200 to 300 DT more than one in original condition, and the extra is often worth it.

Khaireddine Pacha, the modern side of the delegation

Towards Montplaisir and the Belvédère, the Khaireddine Pacha sector was rebuilt in the 2000s with taller residences, lifts and underground parking. You find S+1 units for young professionals there, rarer in the old Cité Olympique, and modern S+2 flats that cost a little more. Ground floors are often taken by offices, which makes the area busy by day and very quiet at night. Professionals looking for premises should go through the offices and shops to rent in Cité El Khadhra.

The buildings that face directly onto avenue Hédi Nouira are well served but noisy; for the same floor area, take a street set back from it. That is my view as a resident, not a rule: some people like having the buses and taxis right downstairs.

Who rents here, and why

The dominant profile is still the civil servant or public sector manager: several ministries are ten minutes away, including Youth and Sport, based in the cité itself. Next come employees of the banks and headquarters at the Centre Urbain Nord, who walk to work or drive a few minutes, then families attached to the Cité El Khadhra secondary school and the local primaries.

Light metro line 2, towards Ariana, runs through the area, and the city centre is reachable without a car. For a tenant working in Tunis who wants neither the Lac nor the suburbs, it is a compromise that holds up. And if the district is not enough, the apartments to rent in the Tunis governorate cover the whole capital.

Parking, meters, waterproofing

Parking, on match nights at the El Menzah stadium and competition weekends at the pool: drop by on a match evening and judge for yourself. The rating of the electricity meter: an old STEG contract will not always carry two air conditioners and a water heater. The waterproofing of top floors and the state of the water risers, two known weak points in the 1967 blocks.

Insist on a tenancy agreement registered at the tax office, a deposit no higher than two months, and a written split of the charges. Only then discuss the price: in older blocks, an owner who keeps a tenant for five years will often agree not to raise the rent every year.