moving to montenegro

Hi there, and welcome to Beautiful Montenegro!

Can we ask why you are coming to Montenegro ? If it is only for 1 or 2 years does it mean your company sends you here?

So I'll try to answer your questions :

what city would you recommend? kotor, bar, petrovac and ulcinj looks nice. Has anyone been there or is there an other city you would recommend?

Personnaly I think the Bay area (Boka Kotorska) is the most beautiful and also the best place to live all-year-round. There are more (western) expats there than on the rest of the coast (there may be more Russian expats who live in Budva for example - but Budva tends to be rather empty between october and april).
Cruise ships come to Kotor almost all year round, except maybe in december-january, and Kotor is a very nice place for bars, cafés, restaurants...
However, the Inner Kotor Bay can be pretty humid in the winter. The whole Boka Kotorska consists of 3 inner bays Kotor Bay, Risan Bay, and Tivat Bay. The latter is less surrounded by high mountains, and benefits from a lot more sunlight. It might seem not so important it first thought, bu when you live in the area all year round, you realise that there is probably around 4 more hours of sunlight in the Tivat Bay than in the 2 other Bays. Tivat in itself doesn't have as much charm as Kotor (Unesco protected), but is undergoing great change, as a marina for Mega Yachts is currently being developped. The whole city is changing and will be totally different in 2 or 3 years time, for sure. Also, Tivat is only 10min away from Kotor by car.

The rest of the coast is beautiful, and Petrovac is very charming, but quite empty in the winter again. So it probably depends whether you like to be alone or if you would like to have animation around you!

what does an 1 bedroom apartment cost per month? + is there an internet site where i can look at appartments?

Well, I totally not recommend searching for an accomodation through the websites, as the owners (usually foreigners) will be asking you for crazy prices. 

To give you an idea, I think you must be able to find accomodation:
- of low-medium quality for : 5€/SQM/month
- of medium-high quality : 8€/SQM/month
- of high-lux quality : 10€+/SQM/month (but very rare offer)

These prices do not include electricity bills, which in the winter might double your accomodation budget, especially if the flat is unproperly insulated, as most of them have been built only for summer rentals and are really unsuitable for winter living. So be very carefull when you choose your apartment. And it is probably better to spend a few nights at the hotel first and have a look yourself for the apartment...


do they speak english well in montenegro or will i have a language problem? should i learn serbian? (im going to stay for 1 or 2 years)

You should be able to manage. Not all Montenegrins speak English, but more and more, especially among the young people (<35). You can try to learn Serbian, it's even better, but I recommend you take daily lessons, as it is a very hard language to learn.

That's it for now!
Cheers,
Claire

thank you very much for  answering my questions. your answers was very helpful.

the reason why i want to move to montenegro is this: I`m a law-student, but i read on my own( i dont attend any lectures) which gives me an oppertunety to experience living in another country for a few years. after reading about different countries in europe I ended up with montenegro as the most interesting one. i have two years left of my studies, but who knows i might end up living there for the rest of my life.

your answers made me think about some other questions.

is it hard to find an apartment? where should i check for appartments? newspapers (i dont speak serbian, so that might be a problem), realestate-agencies or somewere else? i`m thinking of moving in the end of july or august. do you think i will find and apartment within 2 weeks or is there a chanse i would have to give up.

can the electricity-costs really get as high as the rent or did i misunderstood?  i`m use to cold winters in norway, so maybe its not a problem for me.

i red somewhere that serbians use two types of alphabets. Which one should i learn? which do they use in kotor?

is it hard to find an apartment? where should i check for appartments? newspapers (i dont speak serbian, so that might be a problem), realestate-agencies or somewere else? i`m thinking of moving in the end of july or august. do you think i will find and apartment within 2 weeks or is there a chanse i would have to give up.

It is not so hard to find an apartment because there are so many summer rental apartments on the market. Of course in July and August you might find it difficult but more importantly very expensive, as locals usually rent them for 20 to 50 EUR/day during these 2 months, and seem to live with the money earned over 2 or 3 months during the rest of the year. The best time to find and negociate an apartment would definitely be as from september.

Again, because these are summer apartments, you will face the problem of unsuitability for winter living. The problem is not only the temperature (if it was just that, then it would be almost OK as Montenegro is not so cold), but the biggest problem here is the humidity. 95% of the apartments here have no system to evacuate the humidity of the apartments, which ends up in having mould growing on the inside walls. Sounds pretty awful, but most expats living over year here are facing this problem. To make it short, you would have to be very careful on this point... Unfortunately it is the kind of think that is invisible, so you might just have to trust the agents or landlords...

You can try the newspapers (just learn the basics) ask people around (its a small country with small towns where almost every one knows everyone...) try the agencies and my advice is to be very specific on the budget you are ready to pay. Depending on who you are (foreigner or not basically) prices seem to double or triple here, but if you show them you will not be fooled, you should be able to get the normal price, especially for long term rental, and something else, you can sign a 6 or 12 month rental agreement, but refuse to pay 6 or 12 months in advance !

can the electricity-costs really get as high as the rent or did i misunderstood?  i`m use to cold winters in norway, so maybe its not a problem for me.

Well, I've made an estimation ; it seems that my electricity bills cost 0,20c per SQM per day in january/february. So to heat a 50 SQM, that is 300 EUR per month.

i red somewhere that serbians use two types of alphabets. Which one should i learn? which do they use in kotor?

Yes they do: latin and cyrillic - start with latin. Cyrillic is not so difficult to learn at all. On the coast they use more latin than cyrillic.
Good luck !

pederholm wrote:

is there an internet site where i can look at appartments?

On this site long-term-rentals-montenegro.blogspot.com you can find a list of agencies that offer long-term rentals in Montenegro on their websites.

thank you, this will be very helpful.