Yay, found an apartment for the long term! But I really didn't enjoy searching for housing in this overheated market.

First, I was let down by the local rental websites. You go in and see tons of listings with attractive conditions. But then you suddenly notice that most of the offers were posted last year and haven't been updated in forever. You set up filters to show only fresh options, and your choices suddenly shrink. Plus the conditions aren't that interesting anymore.

You start calling through the filtered listings, and way too often you hear that the apartment is either already rented or the owners don't want to rent to foreigners. Some of them you can't even get through to in the first place (they don't answer). You message them, they read it, but there's no response.

Half (maybe more) of the listings are from agencies, not owners. In that case, you'll have to pay half a month's rent for their services. And you're definitely not paying the apartment owner.

Since February 24th, a ton of people unexpectedly moved to Belgrade. Which of course affected rental prices. If before you could easily find great options for 6-7 euros per square meter, now 9-10 is already a good offer. Plus 80-150€ for utilities on top (depending on heating type and other details). Overall you can find cheaper, but it's either on the edge of the world, or the apartment is completely trashed, or both.

A noticeable portion of apartments are rented with no furniture at all. Where there is furniture, there probably won't be dishes and other essentials. You'll have to spend some money when you move in.

But overall, I'm thankful the process isn't like in Germany, where they basically interview you before renting, and then you move in a month or two or three later.

Before searching, it's helpful to figure out the neighborhood too. That's when I discovered this brilliant hoodmaps. For regular travel, there wasn't much need to study what's going on in different neighborhoods (though I did regret not checking where I'd be staying a couple times when I ended up in a bad area). But here, in a semi-joking way, it's got everything you need (and it's pretty accurate too).

Speaking of moving services, there's another great tool — numbeo. It shows pretty accurately how much your expenses will change in a new place. The calculations use the current exchange rate, so factor in some volatility.

Luck played a big role in my search: I called about another listing that was already rented, but the people had another apartment they hadn't really managed to publish anywhere yet. I came to look, liked it, and we signed the contract right away.

PS. If you're really curious, you can browse options here or here.