Houses for rent in Sakiet Eddaier

Sakiet Eddaier is the suburb people from Sfax move to when they want some air without leaving town. The delegation stretches north-east of the centre, between the Mahdia road and the sea, and still keeps the layout of old Greater Sfax: walled jnens, orchards planted with olive and almond trees, a house in the middle, and around them housing estates that have eaten into the orchards since the 1990s. Renting a house here almost always means renting part of a family estate, rarely a property built to let.

So supply is thin. Very few listings for a house for rent in Sakiet Eddaier are online, posted by their owners, whom you call directly. To widen the search to Sakiet Ezzit, the Gremda road or Sfax Ouest, look at all the houses for rent in Sfax governorate, where the choice is much wider.

What actually gets let in Sakiet Eddaier

Three kinds of property keep coming up in house rental listings in Sakiet Eddaier. The first is the villa ground floor: the owner lives upstairs, or the other way round, and lets an S+2 or S+3 (two or three bedrooms plus a living room) with its own entrance, a yard and sometimes a garage. It is the most common and most affordable option, often in the estates around central Sakiet Eddaier and Cité Bourguiba.

The second is the whole house on a jnen, in Merkez Kaaniche, Merkez Essebai or the less built-up areas towards Saltnia. These are single-storey houses from the 1980s or earlier, with a walled plot, a well or a cistern, and trees whose olive crop the owner often wants to keep. Settle this at the first visit: who picks, who waters, who prunes.

The third is the summer house near Sidi Mansour, let by the month from June to September and sometimes by the year off season at a lower rent. A summer house rental in Sidi Mansour, Sfax, is negotiated from the spring; in October, the same owners look for a tenant for the winter.

Who rents, and at what price

Tenants are mostly Sfax families wanting more space than a flat in the centre gives them, employees of the firms on the city's northern roads, and a few transferred teachers or civil servants. A villa ground floor often rents for 500 to 800 DT (Tunisian dinars) a month depending on size and condition, and a whole house with a garden generally goes above that. These ranges are only a guide: with so little on offer, each property more or less sets its own price.

For a cheap house to rent in Sfax, Sakiet Eddaier is still less expensive than the sought-after areas along the Gremda road, but dearer than the rural delegations of the governorate. If you are single or a couple, the rentals in Sakiet Eddaier, flats included, give you more options.

Before signing: commute, water and lease

The commute first. Central Sfax is close as the crow flies, but the Mahdia road and the ring roads clog up at rush hour. Do the drive at 7.30 am before committing, especially if the children go to school in the centre. City buses serve the main roads, much less the inner jnen areas.

Then the water. In areas away from the road, pressure can drop in summer; ask whether there is a cistern or a booster pump, and check the connection to the sewer, as some houses still run on a septic tank.

Finally the lease. Insist on a written contract, registered at the tax office, setting out the term, the deposit (often one to two months) and who looks after the garden. In Sfax families, a house often belongs to several heirs: whoever signs must have the others' consent. And if you like the house enough to want to stay, the houses for sale in Sakiet Eddaier are a little more numerous than the rentals.