What is the best platform or app for finding long term housing (rental)?

The Berliner Wohnungsmarktportal is worth knowing about. It's the city's official site where subsidized housing (WBS) gets listed, but even without a WBS certificate you can find private listings there too. Landlords using it tend to be more established and less likely to ghost you.

For February arrival, start sending inquiries in early January. Most leases here start on the 15th or 1st of the month, so aim for a February 1 or February 15 move-in. If you can't visit before, a temporary Airbnb for 2-3 weeks will let you attend viewings in person, which makes a huge difference.

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honestly immowelt and immoscout24 are the main ones, but for a family you might have better luck with a makler. lots of landlords won't even look at applications from people who aren't here yet, so having someone handle it can save headaches. start looking about 6-8 weeks out, anything earlier and listings will be gone. if you're open to the outskirts, s-bahn zones B and C are way cheaper and still fast to get into center

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For furnished places, WG-Gesucht isn't just for students. They have a "Flats for Families" filter that some people overlook. Unfurnished is more common on Immoscout but you'll need to budget for a kitchen, many rentals come without one. February is a slower month for listings so you might have less competition, but also fewer options. If you're relocating with a company, ask if they have a relocation partner who can vouch for you to landlords.

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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