Housing in Gent

Student Housing

Students staying for a full year will generally be put in Home Boudewijn located at Harelbekestraat 70, 9000 Gent. This is fairly far out of the city center, as well as most of your courses. However the building is filled with other Erasmus students and Belgian students particularly those majoring in medicine as the building is right next to the hospital. So the social aspect of the building is a major plus. The bathroom and showers are communal, and the internet has transfer limitations that can easily be reached by heavy downloaders or uploaders.

Students in their second year who are only staying for half a year, or students who are very late to apply for housing are likely to be put in the housing at Elfjulistraat. These have their own showers and bathrooms and no limitations to the internet. They also cost about 100 Euro more.

Private Market

Depending on the effort you are willing to put in, you can either stay in private housing meant for students, or rent a real studio and set up your own internet and buy your own furniture. This might be worth it for a second year student staying there for a year. Depending on location and quality of the housing, prices range between € 280 - 700.

(Sadly since Juli 2014, "Home sharing" in which several students group together to live in a house instead of getting seperate student rooms is no longer allowed in order to give more chance to young families to live in ghent. This rule strictly implies that atleast one of the residents must have his domicile ( official address of living ie. address used on all official documents ) at this location thus house sharing might still be possible in some cases since non-european students are supposed to take domicile on their address in Europe in order to get your residency card. More investigation into this possibility will be necessary though.)

Some websites to help you with your search:
Kapaza - Also is useful for finding things like bikes, monitors, or other knick knacks you want to buy.