Houses for rent in Akouda

Renting a house in Akouda means choosing between two markets that have nothing in common. In the town and its extensions, you rent a house to live in: a villa floor, a town house with a courtyard, an estate house in Akouda Est, for a rent no longer found in Sousse. In Chott Meriem, you rent a villa for the summer, furnished, a few minutes from the beach, and prices follow the season rather than the district.

Listings for a house to rent in Akouda are few on Houni: a few listings at a time, almost all posted by private owners. It is a market where word of mouth still counts for a lot and where emigrants' houses are often let to relatives. It is therefore worth also checking all the houses to rent across the Sousse governorate, from Hammam Sousse to Msaken, and coming back regularly: Akouda listings rarely stay online for more than a few weeks.

The villa floor, the local formula

The typical Akouda house is a family house built in two stages: the ground floor first, the upper floor when a son marries or when savings allow. When the children leave, the upper floor is let with its independent entrance, two or three bedrooms, a kitchen and often a terrace overlooking the olive trees or the neighbouring rooftops. It is the most common property in the listings and the most affordable: a villa floor to rent in Akouda often goes for between 500 and 800 DT a month outside Chott Meriem, water and electricity extra.

Whole houses, a town house on a 150 to 250 m² plot or an estate house with a garage, are rarer on the rental market. Their owners live elsewhere, in Tunis or abroad, and look for a stable tenant, a family of civil servants or Kantaoui managers, for a lease of several years. The Akouda Est and Ettantana areas hold most of these recent houses; in the old core, houses are older, with rooms in a row around a courtyard, and sometimes need work the landlord will not do.

Chott Meriem: summer villa, winter villa

A villa to rent in Chott Meriem changes price and tenant with the month. From mid-June to the end of August, villas with a garden, and even more so those with a pool, are let by the week or the month to Tunisian families from Tunis or the interior, to emigrants on holiday and to a few Algerian and Libyan visitors. Summer rents frequently exceed what the same house brings in over three winter months, which explains why few owners accept a yearly lease on the coast.

Out of season, the same villas are sometimes let from October to May at very reasonable prices, to teachers at the Higher Agronomic Institute, to couples working in the Kantaoui hotels or to European retirees escaping the winter. If that arrangement suits you, make it clear that you will vacate the house before June: that is the argument that gets the lease signed. Year-round house rentals in Chott Meriem, without a break, do exist but mostly concern houses set back from the sea, on the road and village side.

What to look at before signing

For a house, the viewing matters more than for a flat. Check the roof and terraces after rain, the condition of the water tank or the pump when mains pressure drops in summer, and the meter: in villa floors, electricity sometimes runs through the ground-floor meter, with an informal split that should be put in writing. Ask for a registered tenancy contract, with the deposit clearly stated, and a signed inventory with photos, especially for a furnished villa in Chott Meriem.

If you cannot find a house, a floor or a flat among the homes to rent in Akouda may do the job, and for anyone thinking of staying, the houses for sale in Akouda show where purchase prices stand in the same districts.