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Comment by andrewcooke | Hacker News Reader

i was surprised by "agent fee for finding your apartment" - apartments are listed in el mercurio. just go to http://www.propiedades.emol.com/_portada/index.aspx and do the clicky. also, i imagine you can't claim for housing deposits because it's a deposit - you get it back.

[i'm a software engineer that lives in santiago and i'm in the middle of buying an appt as an investment and would be happy to rent it to someone in the business, so can i ask some questions? are people looking for furnished or unfurnished? does it need to be central or is anywhere with access to the metro ok? what kind of rents are people paying?

and finally, i imagine you're already inundated with help and contacts, but if anyone does need someone local who speaks english just drop me a line.]

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Using an agent is a good idea when you have no lay of the land. There are safe and less safe areas here, knowing the difference is what an agent does for you. Also, if you do not speak the language negotiating can be extremely difficult, a local agent can iron all those out. For me the fee was only around $125 USD, which is reasonable for the work they do upfront and the ongoing support they can give you on the backend.

for $125 i agree it's not worth arguing about, and also support is reassuring. but if someone does want to save some money it's worth knowing that you don't find apts at that price in unsafe areas. santiago is very divided (physically) by class.

Hi Andrew,

As someone who is going to Santiago as part of the program, I've done some research based on previous participants' experiences.

Find apartments using Home Chile (http://www.homechile.cl/) and all are furnished. Many recommended Providencia area.

Since you are based there, hope you don't mind if I ping you for questions.

matt

sure - email in profile. most appts here are unfurnished, i think (makes sense for local long-term use) which probably explains why homechile (which i didn't know about, thanks) exists. providencia is a nice place to live (i live there and i imagine it's similar standards to what people from the usa would be used to), but it's certainly not the lowest price area.

ps wasn't going to post this as a separate answer because it's 10 years old and i had a local job offer, but i found getting permanent residence to be very easy (i had arrived on a tourist visa, which can be renewed for up to 6 months). i can't remember if having the job offer was critical (i think it was the other way round - i needed the residency because employment would have been illegal on a tourist visa), but what surprised me was the need to show evidence of education level, so bring some kind of certificate!

Thanks!

From the Startup Chile FAQ, participants are entitled up to $600,000 CLP monthly spending on rental. Many had fully furnished apartments around Providencia with facilities like pool and gym (from HomeChile listings, apartments with such facilities are around 400k-600k). Providencia are also recommended because it is said to be safer.

PS: Another website similar to HomeChile is ContactChile (http://www.contactchile.cl)

ok, so now i'm curious - if they paid less for somewhere to live, would they have more money for their startup? i'm sure you can imagine that the programmers that they are hiring for $1m a month don't spend 60% of their wages on pads with gyms and pools...

From what I know, yes. But the total reimbursement is capped at $40k USD which includes salaries and rental expenses.

Yes. As a single founder in the program I can claim up to 400 000 CLP, I currently pay 300 000. The difference is now available for me to use for any other purpose that is reimbursable.

(startupchile participant) I highly, highly recommend homechile. Fernando, the manager, speaks good English, was a big help in finding an appropriate place and has helped us multiple times with translation when issues like having our internet randomly go out have come up. Providencia is a nice centralized location and near the office. If I could do it over I probably would have tried to pick a place in Manuel Montt (Providencia) as it is walking distance from the office and also near most of the nightlife.

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