We're trying to find an apartment/house to rent for our aliyah that will be iy'H this summer, and doing it from overseas, with no one we know personally in our intended city-of-landing, is a little frightening. We've made a connection with a friend of a friend who's helping us somewhat, but there's only so much we can bug him before we make him nuts.

How are you going about this?

Do you commit from here, do you wait till you're there and live in a hotel for a week, or what?

For the record, we went last summer to get the kids used to the idea and to firm up where we did and didn't want to live, and we don't have the money for a pilot trip at all. So please don't suggest a pilot trip. But any other suggestions, would love to hear them ...

There are many short term apartments for rent, especially in Jerusalem. They cost a bit more but you have no obligation.
Many people rent one of those in the mean time until they find a house. Remember people get engaged and married pretty fast as well so often even Israelis find themselves "homeless" for awhile until they get settled.

I wouldn't buy or even sign a rental contract on ANY property without first seeing it with my own eyes and giving it a full inspection. I don't see how you can do that from overseas. Also how do you even know where you want to live if you haven't checked out the community, schools etc?

So where do you sleep when you land, if you don't get something ahead of time? We have b'H several children, can't just show up on a friend's doorstep, IYKWIM. What do people do? Stay in hotels for the first few weeks (read: throw away money)?

That's what a Merkaz Klita (Absorption center) is for. I did Ulpan Etzion but that's only for singles.

An option for you - as a family - might be Beit Canada:

http://www.jafi.org.il/aliyah/abscenters/a...anada/index.asp

We also landed in a Mercaz Klita. We came with no money to put down on a place or even enough money for rent right away. Needed to find jobs to pay rent! Mercaz Klita was our landing cushion. Subsidized housing, subsidized utilities, office helping clarify what official this or that we needed to take care of next, subsidized day care, Ulpan, and I think a stipend for time done in Ulpan. Talk to your shaliach.

I strongly suggest taking furnished temporary accomodation and getting to know your neighbourhoods first before 'committing'. Your specific street and neighbourhood can be very important.

If there is a local 'list' operating this can be a wonderful way to get to know people.
Good Luck!

Shoshana

We had several places pressured on us by the young shaliach as "perfect"for us. Believe me if we would have listened to him it would have been a disaster. What saved us was that our rav opposed both places and Jay Shapiro came in from Phylly and realized the guy knew nothing about placing dati, let alone charedi olim.

One of those suggestions was to buy in Efrat, which was still in the planning stage and "the most fashionable place for young datiim". He had no idea that he was talking to people who were not at all in love w/American culture and had no desire to live near it, let alone recreate it in Israel. We went to maon olim and afterwards moved to a temeni neighborhood and were the only Anglos and maybe the only Ashkenazim in sight. We lived there happily for 7 years.

BTW, there is very little available for western olim available in choices of mercaz klita or maon olim because they were taken up first by the Ethiopan and russian aliya and it seem they are being phased out. When I came they were all over the country and you could choose the one that best suited your needs. I am not sure what is left is suitable for everyone. Do they even still have maon olim? If you know Israel it was a much better choice.