I understand your skepticism, I myself find it very hard to believe I couldn't find a place to stay in Paris. Btw, if you're thinking of "other factors" like s

I understand your skepticism, I myself find it very hard to believe I couldn't find a place to stay in Paris. Btw, if you're thinking of "other factors" like something dodgy about my personality, there aren't any. If there was something about me so dodgy that nobody wanted to rent to me, it would affect my ability to be employed, first. And yet I got an offer from the first startup to which I applied in Paris, so it can't be that. Perhaps the recent immigrants you spoke with were comfortable with less ... formal? ways of renting? For example, searching for "why so hard to rent in Paris foreigner" on duckduckgo, I find this account of similar difficulties as mine: https://howtobecomeparisian.com/2020/04/13/the-struggle-of-finding-an-apartment-in-paris/ https://howtobecomeparisian.com/2020/04/13/the-struggle-of-f... << I arrived in Paris thinking it would be easy to find a place to live, and the end result ended up being years of dodgy landlords, questionable agencies, and a string of short-term leases which made me feel like I always had to be ready to pack up at a moment’s notice. >> I'm guessing there are many people living in similar precarious accommodation. I didn't want that, so I guess I played on hard mode to begin with. But the point is that the hard mode is hard, and I'm not playing some game, I'm just trying to rent a place to stay and work in a European capital. It shouldn't be hard.