Booking your room in Santiago from abroad, safely and without a local account

1. Why renting from abroad is the normal case

Booking before you fly is not a convenience for students in a hurry, it is how an exchange semester works. You know your dates, you know your university, and the Chilean academic year starts in early March or early August depending on the semester you are aiming at. Everyone therefore arrives within the same two or three week window.

The alternative, searching once you are there, means paying for a hostel while you view places, discovering the city in emergency mode and taking whatever is left. Santiago is vast: between PUC's Casa Central downtown, the San Joaquín campus, UDP in the barrio universitario, USACH at Estación Central or UAI in Peñalolén, picking the wrong area can cost you an hour on the metro every day for five months. Those trade-offs are better made calmly, from home, than with a suitcase in your hand.

2. What blocks exchange students on the standard market

If renting from abroad long had a bad reputation, it is because the Chilean rental market is not built for a foreign student passing through. Three obstacles come up every time.

• The aval: a local guarantor with income in Chile. Impossible to provide when you are arriving for one semester.
• Proof of income: Chilean payslips or tax returns, which by definition you do not have.
• A Chilean bank account: slow to open once you arrive, and rarely available without a long-stay residence document.

On top of that comes the term. Standard leases are often signed for a year, while your stay lasts five or ten months. It is precisely to remove those blockers that furnished shared housing, contracted for the length of the semester, developed for international students.

3. How a booking works, step by step

The process comes down to four moments, and it is the same whether you book from London, Paris or Berlin.

1. You choose your room

You browse the places available for your semester dates, with the monthly price shown and details about the flatshare. You can ask your questions before committing to anything.

2. You confirm your booking

You pay the deposit, the equivalent of one month's rent, and nothing else: there are no booking fees and no commission on top. From that moment the listing comes down: the room is held for you and nobody else can take it while the landlord reviews your request.

3. The landlord has 24 hours to reply

If they accept, they sign the rental contract electronically and your room is confirmed. The contract is therefore signed well before you fly, without waiting for you to reach Chile. If they decline or do not reply in time, you are refunded in full. You are never left with money tied up for nothing.

4. You receive your confirmation

You travel with your contract already signed, your address and your dates. The day you land in Santiago, you go straight home. The full process is set out on how it works.

4. Paying from your home country

You pay by international transfer from a European account. There is nothing to open in Chile, and nothing to wait for in terms of residence documents.

The part that reassures families most is elsewhere: the price you see is the final price. It is locked in when you book and does not move. The Chilean peso may swing between now and March, your rent will not. You know exactly what you are paying, in euros, at the moment you commit, and you can build your budget on it with no margin of uncertainty.

Your deposit is not handed straight to a stranger: it is held by Flatmaters, as a neutral third party, in a separate account, while the landlord confirms and the contract is signed. That mechanism is what makes booking from a distance safe, rather than a precaution you have to apply yourself.

5. The deposit and what happens when you leave

The garantía is the deposit, and it is precisely the sum you pay in order to book. Nothing is added on top of it. On the standard Chilean market landlords often ask for one or two months' rent; with Flatmaters it is a single month, not two.

That sum is held in a separate account for the whole of your tenancy, then returned at the end of your stay once the condition of the property has been checked. It is not there to cover your last month's rent: it is a deposit, and it comes back to you.

As for gastos comunes, these are the service charges of an apartment building, meaning upkeep of common areas, caretaker and lift. The amount depends entirely on the block and the services it provides, and it sits on top of the rent in your housing budget.

Finally there are the utilities. In some properties, water, electricity and gas are not included in the rent and are billed separately, based on what the household actually uses. Treat it as its own budget line alongside rent.

6. Your first moves on arrival

You arrive with a contract and an address, so the essential part is done. Three useful things remain for your first week.

• Flag any difference between the listing and the actual property quickly, while you are still in the very first days.
• Get your Bip! card for the metro and buses, it is what unlocks the city from day one.
• Do your first food shop near home. Santa Isabel is among the cheaper chains, along with Líder, and La Vega Central remains unbeatable for fruit and vegetables.

The rest, flatshare life, going out, the rhythm of the city, takes care of itself. To picture it, have a look at student life in Santiago, and if you want to know who is behind the platform, that is on the about page.

7. Frequently asked questions