How do employees rent housing in France when they're on their probationary period?

Every expatriate destination comes with a unique housing market along with unique nuances for finding and securing a tenancy agreement with landlords. That is why we have amazing destination service partners to help navigate these unique elements and facilitate the process for getting quality lease agreements in place to support expatriates for the duration of their assignment.

While France is often ranked as one of the top destinations for expatriation, it can be one of the more challenging. France comes with it's own set of particular challenges for expatriates to secure housing, and some have said it is easier to find a job in France than a place to live. While tenant rights in France are fairly supportive of the tenant, some of the common problems (per Expatica) that expatriates bump into are:

• slow real estate agents
• understanding the differences between furnished and unfurnished accommodations
• a lengthy list of required French paperwork
• landlords are apt to ask for larger security deposits than French law allows them to require
• getting security deposits back

But one thing left off this list was how to secure a lease for an expatriate that is currently on their probationary period. Per Home Conseil, a destination service provider in France that supports expatriates coming into the country, "This leads to a high number of inaccessible properties to foreign or newly hired employees and although we screen the properties that will be presented to you, the presence of a GLI is not always advertised or even known by the person putting the property on the market."