When it comes to business strategies capitalism has brought about two simple rules:
- you’re either cheap and cheerful and available to many
- or expensive, elitist and targeting the niche or the monetarily unchallenged clientele.
In other words, you get what you pay for. The rule pretty much applies to the market of short-term rentals in Belgrade. In fact it’s applied so consistently that the exceptions, which indeed exist, get inadvertently overlooked.
The question we’ll be dealing with today is a question that logically imposes anyone who has to be careful with the budget: Is it possible to find, cheap and yet good apartments in Belgrade for short term rent? To all those searching for them, we have a pleasant surprise –yes it is!
There is a rub, however. Or two, to be precise.
For one, cheap but good Belgrade apartments very quickly become an informed choice. This means that are constantly booked well in advance. The second and unfortunately rather common occurrence with these devils is that their owners soon decide they’ve underpriced their properties.
This is why our hard working content marketers have to update this list at least twice a year. Today is one of those days and we pay special attention to four apartments: LEONARDO, DANITZA, DALMA, ALICE and LEVEL. If your need for a low-budget high-quality accommodation is urgent, just click on the previous links to check their availability. Alternatively, you can always look at our full current offer of what we regard as cheap apartments.
Now,
To broach the subject we first need to define a cheap apartment in Belgrade. If you exclude the last minute deals, the jungle of Belgrade’s short term apartment rentals, has spawned the following hierarchy:
- The price range from 15 to 25 euros per night gets you nothing – at least when our offer is concerned. Most “apartments” in the range are not apartments at all; but rather rooms or adjunct facilities with ropey furniture and questionable damp control. In what we have had a chance to see so far, these would be deemed unacceptable for long term tenants even with dumping prices. We find them ingeniously entrepreneurial. But at the same time, it would be completely unethical to triple their worth in short term rental market. Some apartments in our offer, reach that price when the reservation is long, but that is a different thing.
- Belgrade Apartments that fall into the price range between 25 to 35 euros per night are either studios or one bedroom apartments. Furniture, sanitary conditions and internet connection are of an acceptable quality – but not necessarily deserving praise. In fact, this budget buys you an additional iota of privacy not inherent to hostels
- Anything between 35 to 45 euros will in most cases get you a very becoming one bedroom apartment in a fine location. More often than not they are devoid of parking. The sleeping arrangement usually puts two into the bedroom and two on the foldable sofa in the living room.
- Budgets ranging from 45 to 60 euros per night will provide you with two (or more) bedroom Belgrade apartments – generally accommodation units with higher capacity or luxurious smaller units.
- The apartments over 60 euros per night have an air of affluence about them. Swanky, L-shaped sofa sets, chromium, fancy lights and appliances that could easily become an object of envy of middle-class representatives from countries far more well-off that Serbia is. In the majority of cases, these apartments have either a garage or a dedicated parking spot at disposal and provide the volume of living space far above average for ex-communist housing.
So one could agree that a 25 to 30 euro price range, or anything below 10 euros per night per person, may be considered cheap. A distinctive feature of Belgrade’s short term rental market is that the apartments with lowest net price have a relatively adverse price per person ratio. In most cases, this means that groups of over four people (in which every person pays for themselves, so excluding families) save a lot more money if they book a single large apartment than if they book two smaller cheaper ones.
Now, for the definition of quality, or what do we mean when we say good apartments in Belgrade? In a country that has had significant discontinuities of commerce due to wars and sanctions in the past couple of decades, the definition of residential standard is a slightly daunting task. It becomes even more daunting as Belgrade is not a representative sample of the rest of the country (just as Berlin is not representative of Germany or Paris of France). Some pre-defined criteria do exist but in this particular case, they are closest to our own subjective interpretation of esthetical qualities allocated to the apartment in question. Practically speaking this translates into:
- recency of the apartments refurbishment
- upkeep (not infrequently does the lack of better standards of hygiene spoil the overall impression)
- absence of wear and tear caused by extensive use or inappropriate maintenance
It is with these caveats that we introduce the chosen few that can be merited as cheap but good Belgrade apartments. They are:
Cheap but good Belgrade apartment No5: LEVEL
Click on the image to get to the apartments homepage
LEVEL is not exactly in the center of Belgrade but it’s not far either – It is in the Southern Boulevard. With a separate bedroom and a super large terrace with a tenth floor view, the apartment comes with decent furnishings. Apart from the bathroom – which is bloody marvelous. It is beyond the zoned system parking area, so you may say you’ve got a free parking coming with it. If you are lucky enough to find it, that is. LEVEL is convenient for up to four people and is an absolutely excellent choice for those who know Belgrade and seek value for their money. The price per person per night starts at 8.75 E.
Cheap but good Belgrade apartment No4: ALICE
Click on the image to get to the apartment’s homepage
ALICE is in an old apartment building on the outer rim of the very center of Belgrade – just a minute walk from the Jevremovatz Botanical Garden and another seven to the Parliament building. It is quite decently furnished. It has a kitchenette which is partially separated from the living room, and it can sleep up to four people. Rooms are spacious and the ceilings are quite tall, making it bright and comfy and pleasant to stay in. Its price, that starts at 7,5 euros per person per night is yet another good reason to take it into consideration.
Cheap but good Belgrade apartment No3: DALMA
Click on the image to get to the apartment’s homepage
DALMA is snuggled on the third floor of an apartment building. It is a well organized space divided into four functional areas: an antechamber with a kitchenette and a breakfast bar, a bathroom with a corner shaped tub, a living room with a fold out sofa and a small but appealing bedroom with a double bed. Officially, it is located in the greater city center – Vuk’s monument, but many Belgraders perceive it as central. The lack of parking (although you can do it on street) is superseded by its super affordable price (30 euros for 4 people)
Cheap but good Belgrade apartment No2: DANYTZA
Click on the image to get to the apartment’s homepage
DANYTZA’s aesthetic qualities definitely stand above the rest of the list. Truth be told, we have been mentioning it throughout this blog, but since then it has underwent a thorough refurbishment. And when we say thorough we mean down to the point of being unrecognizable. It’s got two bedrooms, a terrace, its own parking and it is in the center of Belgrade very close to the train station. One of the bedrooms has a large double bed and the the other room has four single beds, This setting provides a really flexible sleeping arrangement while the living room remains unoccupied. That in itself is a rarity, while the overall furnishings put DANITZA shoulder to shoulder with some of the top notch apartments in our offer. The price does depend on the number of guests, but at full accommodation capacity, it still remains under 9 euros per person per night.
Cheap but good Belgrade apartment No1: LEONARDO
This brand new one bedroom apartment has a large terrace and its own garage. Its interior design is contemporary, and its maintenance is ridiculously fine. When we say it is fully furnished we mean borderlining luxury. It has a dishwasher, a washing machine and even the oft forgotten but always handy bidet. On the border of Vrachar, close to King Alexander Boulevard this apartment has no flaws. To get this at 40 euro day rate IS cheap. And the quality is top notch. This is why it tops the list of cheap and yet good Belgrade apartments
And there you have it. This small group of apartments provides much more than most of their peers in short term rental market in Belgrade. Which is not to say that some others won’t take their place.
For now these are the cheap but good Belgrade apartments.
Let’s see what 2017 brings…