Houses for rent in El Haouaria

Most people looking for a house to rent in El Haouaria want it for July and August, and they want it by the sea. That is what the searches landing on this page say, often typed in Arabic from Tunis: a house for the family, a few steps from the beach at Zaouiet El Mgaiez, Sidi Daoud or the big El Haouaria beach, away from the Hammamet crowds. The tip of Cap Bon meets this demand, but with few properties and almost no agencies.

On Houni, the supply of houses for rent in El Haouaria is small: a handful of listings at best, posted by owners who let their holiday home when they are not using it, or who are looking for a year-round tenant for a village house. Most of the time, very few listings are online at once. To widen the search, all the houses for rent in Nabeul governorate cover Kélibia, Menzel Temime and the whole coast down to Hammamet.

Summer: holiday homes by the sea

A seaside house for rent in El Haouaria is, in practice, the holiday home of a village family or a Tunis family, let by the week or fortnight in high season. It sits in the villa neighbourhoods that grew up behind the beaches: at Zaouiet El Mgaiez on the Gulf of Tunis side, where you can see Zembra from the terrace, at Sidi Daoud near the small fishing port, or on the way out of the village towards El Haouaria beach. Expect simple houses, two or three bedrooms, an equipped kitchen, a courtyard or terrace, rarely a pool.

Demand outstrips supply from mid-July to the end of August. Owners who list in May or June can choose their tenant, and a decent house less than 500 metres from the beach often rents for several hundred dinars a night in August, far less in June or September. If budget matters, aim precisely for June or September: the sea is good, the wind calmer, and the sparrowhawk festival in June livens up the village.

Year-round: village houses and tenant profiles

Year-round house rental in El Haouaria is another market, smaller still. Tenants are teachers and civil servants posted to the delegation, households working in fishing, farming or at the Sidi Daoud wind farm, and a few retirees who come to spend a quiet winter. What they find: village houses in El Haouaria Nord or El Haouaria Sud, single-storey or with an upper floor, an enclosed courtyard, sometimes a garage, at rents rarely above what an S+1 costs in Nabeul.

The trap for a yearly tenant is the house the owner wants back in summer. Many holiday homes are let from October to May only, then closed for the family. Ask straight away whether the lease covers July and August. In the village, whole houses lived in all year by their owners and let in full are rare; house floors let separately are more common and appear on the page of homes for rent in El Haouaria.

Wind, water, lease: what to check

El Haouaria is one of the windiest places in the country. A house facing north-west, with no wall or windbreak, is a very different experience from a sheltered house in the village: look at which way the terrace faces and the condition of the windows and doors. Check the water too: some beach houses depend on a well or a cistern, with low pressure in high season when the whole neighbourhood is watering.

For a summer stay, a simple written agreement is enough, but settle in advance the amount paid on booking, what it covers and the inventory on arrival. For a yearly rental, insist on a registered contract, a reasonable deposit, usually one or two months, and a breakdown of charges: well water or metered supply, electricity, municipal tax. And if the elusive rental house convinces you to buy, the houses for sale in El Haouaria are on a neighbouring page.