Recommended apartment For Paris

Look at Apartments du Lourve. I think I read the recommendation here. They look great but I haven't personally stayed with them.

https://www.apartmentsdulouvre.com/

My mother and I will be staying at one of the units, "So Chic", this December in the Marais from Apartments du Louvre. She has limited mobility and their two buildings have elevators. If memory serves me right, the family owns the buildings and all the units are rental units. I have also stayed in apartments from Cobblestone Paris, https://cobblestoneparis.com.

Enjoy your trip.

are you aware of the crackdown on illegal (non-registered) apartments in Paris? AirBnB was recently handed a huge fine - see https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/airbnb-finded-over-8-000-000.

Be sure that wherever you look you make sure that the ad has a prominent 13 digit number starting with 75. You don't want to turn up and find it shut down.

Thanks for the replies, and thanks Nigel for the reminder - I did read that but it had slipped my mind.

Glenn

As for AirBnB in Paris:

I looked at and considered AirBnB for a Paris trip recently, and while most but not all listings show a 13 digit number, there is no way for you to verify that the number is real, or up-to-date. I could not find a Paris government website where you can plug that number in and see if it is valid or current and attached to said property.

Therefore you have to choose to trust the apartment owner, but unless someone knows something I don't, there is no way to verify that a posted registration number is valid. You also have no way of knowing if the rental is still in compliance with the rules limiting how many days per year that are permitted under the registration. Very important to know that AirBnB itself does not certify the validity of the numbers, or the owner's compliance with the rules, either.. So you are on your own with these bookings and the risks inherent in renting an AirBnB in Paris.

I asked one Paris owner if they could show me a copy of the registration - the actual physical license - and they acted like they did not understand the request, referred to the number on the listing.

So I was too queasy to go through with a booking. Plus I found plenty of hotels with very flexible cancellation policies, not the AirBnB listings.

Application to register an apartment is done online, it only takes minutes. There is nothing really to show but the number. The city has a staff of 35 agents who do nothing but enforce short term rental laws; eventually they will catch up with violators, to include those using false numbers.

All you really know is that any apartment without a 13 digit registration number is unlikely to be a lawful offering.

Tocard, If an advertised apt has a registration # there’s no way for me, the renter, to know if it’s legitimate… is that correct? One of the 35 agents could eventually figure it out, but how does the renter know?

Rick recommends Cobblestone Apartments and some other rental services for apartments in Paris. These are legit companies that are registered with the French government. They have several nice properties in the Marais and used to offer a Rick Steves discount (no sure with COVID that they still do). See https://cobblestoneparis.com/

Susan - The renter does not know if the apartment he is about to rent is offered legally or not. All a renter can do is look for the registration number. Even if the apartment is legitimately registered, the renter still does not know that the owner has not already rented it for the maximum number of days annually - 120 for Paris, 90 for Nice.

It would have been a great deal easier if the government had simply banned short term rentals. However, in an effort to accommodate those who supplement their annual incomes by renting their apartments while they are away, the government has allowed short term rentals to continue conditionally. But without control infrastructure in place - a national rental database for example, rental customers can never be absolutely sure about their short term rental reservations.

We rented a wonderful small 1 bedroom apartment in Le Marais for a month during 2018. Everything about it was perfect---high quality furnishings/linens/products/coffee, nice and accommodating owners and the location was so convenient. There is also a lift in the building. I just checked the listing and the reviews continue to be 5 star.
We were there during August and it was hot. The owners furnished a portable air conditioner and fans which worked well. Check it out:
https://www.vrbo.com/6617212ha?adultsCount=2&arrival=2021-08-03&departure=2021-08-06&haExternalSourceId=ebacfa6c-617e-41df-862f-da0721de4355%209e9996ca-aeb1-4f05-9a27-180a33d5af01-hasc&preferlocale=true&utm_campaign=HAUS_TRV_INQ_HASC_replied_PPS&utm_content=propid_text_o_lprop&utm_medium=email&utm_source=SYS&utm_term=20180403&vgdc=HAUS

Thank you Tocard, that’s what I thought. A registration # tells you nothing.

Mark, the apt you linked looks really good.