Housing

Basic information for students looking for an apartment in Helsinki.

HOAS

The Foundation for Student Housing in the Helsinki Region (HOAS) has rental apartments all over the metropolitan area. Most of them are shared apartments with 2 to 3 rooms and kitchen/kitchenette. Depending on the size, age and equipment, the rent of a room is around 300€/month. An apartment large enough to house a family or a group of friends can be rented for €450-850 €/month. Nowadays, all HOAS apartments have an Internet connection, which is included in the rent. The HOAS website has a Flea market (Kirpputori), where you can find advertisements for items for sale/rental, etc.

In the autumn, thousands of students apply for rooms at HOAS. HOAS usually gives priority to degree students and then to exchange students, if they still have rooms available.

Clavis

Clavis is a hall of residence only for students of the Sibelius Academy. The house is located on Vanha viertotie 21, 00350 Helsinki. All rooms are small studio apartments (18 or 23 m² in size), but with their own bathroom, stove and Internet connection (included in the rent). There is some basic furniture in the dormitory that residents can use (a bed, tables, chairs, and drawers). In the house, there is a sauna, laundry, some practice rooms and a common lounge. The rent ranges from 435 to 556 euros/month including water and electricity. Housing application forms can be filled out on the website www.clavishouse.fi. For additional information, please contact info(at)clavishouse.fi.

There are only a limited number of rooms available at Clavis every year. New students are advised to also apply for a room elsewhere.

Other options

If you don’t get an apartment from HOAS or Clavis, you will have to look for other alternatives and use your connections. This might be difficult as most of apartment rental advertisements are in Finnish and landlords want to meet their tenants before renting to them. Most of advertisements can be found on the Internet. Ask your Finnish contacts to help you!