Just to provide numbers: I pay about $650 for a two-room apartment about 15min by subway from Mitte, where I study, and I sublet the smaller room. I end up pay

Just to provide numbers: I pay about $650 for a two-room apartment about 15min by subway from Mitte, where I study, and I sublet the smaller room. I end up paying a bit less than what my classmates pay for rent on average. This is still considered expensive by people who have been living in Berlin for just few years more. The rents are still rising since many people are coming to Berlin at the moment; and have been quite high in hip districts like Prenzlauer Berg for a while, but there is definitely no comparison to many other large cities in Europe like London (and none to the Bay Area at all, where you can literally end up paying $700 for a room shared with a stranger, next to the gap in general living expenses).