An apartment, or flat (in Russian language - kvartira), is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building. Such a building may be called an apartment building, especially if it consists of many apartments for rent. Apartments may be owned by an owner/occupier or rented by tenants. The term apartment is favored in North America, whereas the term flat is commonly, but not exclusively, used in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and most Commonwealth countries. In Malaysian English, flat often denotes a housing block of lesser quality meant for lower-income groups, while apartment is more generic and may also include luxury condominiums.

In the US, some apartment-dwellers own their own apartments, either as co-ops, in which the residents own shares of a corporation that owns the building or development; or in condominiums, whose residents own their apartments and share ownership of the public spaces. Most apartments are in buildings designed for the purpose, but large older houses are sometimes divided into apartments. The word apartment connotes a residential unit or section in a building. In some locations, particularly the United States, the word denotes a rental unit owned by the building owner, and is not typically used for a condominium.

In the UK, some flat owners own a share in the company that owns the freehold of the building. This is commonly known as a "share of freehold" flat. The freehold company has the right to collect annual ground rents from each of the flat owners in the building. The freeholder can also develop or sell the building, subject to the usual planning and restrictions that might apply.

In some countries (but not in Ukraine) the word unit is a more general term referring to both apartments and rental business suites. The word is generally used only in the context of a specific building; e.g., "This building has three units" or "I'm going to rent a unit in this building", but not "I'm going to rent a unit somewhere." In Australia, a unit refers to flats, apartments or even semi-detached houses. Some buildings can be characterized as mixed use buildings, meaning part of the building is for commercial, business, or office use, usually on the first floor or first couple floors, and there are one or more apartments in the rest of the building, usually on the upper floors.

Apartments can be classified into several types. In the US the typical terms are a Studio (in Ukraine - one-room), efficiency, bedsit, or bachelor style apartment. These all tend to be the smallest apartments with the cheapest rents in a given area. These kinds of apartment usually consist mainly of a large room which is the living, dining, and bedroom combined. There are usually kitchen facilities as part of this central room, but the bathroom is its own smaller separate room.

Moving up from the efficiencies are one-bedroom apartments (in Ukraine - two-room), in which one bedroom is separate from the rest of the apartment. Then there are two-bedroom (in Ukraine - three-room), three-bedroom, (in Ukraine - four-room) etc. apartments. Small apartments often have only one entrance.

Large apartments often have two entrances (and two bathrooms, in Ukraine - one entrance in most cases), perhaps a door in the front and another in the back. Depending on the building design, the entrance doors may be directly to the outside or to a common area inside, such as a hallway. Depending on location, apartments may be avbaailable for rent furnished with furniture or unfurnished into which a tenant usually moves in with their own furniture. In Kiev Ukraine they usually furnished. A garden apartment has some characteristics of a townhouse: each apartment has its own entrance, and apartments are not placed vertically over one another (see houses for daily rent). However, a garden apartment is usually only one story high and never more than two stories; they are often one-bedrooms and almost never more than two-bedrooms.

Laundry facilities may be found in a common area accessible to all the tenants in the building, or each apartment may have its own facilities. Depending on when the building was built and the design of the building, utilities such as water, heating, and electricity may be common for all the apartments in the building or separate for each apartment and billed separately to each tenant (however, many areas in the US have ruled it illegal to split a water bill among all the tenants, especially if a pool is on the premises). Outlets for connection to telephones are typically included in apartments. Telephone service, cable television and similar amenities, air conditioner, electricity are included with an apartment in Kiev if it's daily rent. Parking space(s), and extra storage space may or may not be included with an apartment. Rental leases often limit the maximum number of people who can reside in each apartment. On or around the ground floor of the apartment building, a series of mailboxes are typically kept in a location accessible to the public and, thus, to the mailman too. Every unit typically gets its own mailbox with individual keys to it. In smaller apartment buildings such as two- or three-flats, or even four-flats, garbage is often disposed of in trash containers similar to those used at houses. In larger buildings, garbage is often collected in a common trash bin or dumpster. For cleanliness or minimizing noise, many lessors will place restrictions on tenants regarding keeping pets in an apartment.

In some parts of the world, the word apartment refers to a new purpose-built self-contained residential unit in a building, whereas the word flat means a converted self-contained unit in an older building (in Russian language it's only one word for both - kvartira). An industrial, warehouse, or commercial space converted to an apartment is commonly called a loft, although some modern lofts are built by design. An apartment consisting of the top floor of a high apartment building can be called a penthouse.
(Taken from wikipedia, edited by RentInKiev manager)

RentInKiev agency mainly offers apartments of 4 and 5 stars. That's how we define the level of rented flats:

3 stars (***) - economy class, basic or Soviet style renovation, availability of the most necessary things for living such as hot water, TV, telephone etc.;
4 stars (****) - business class, Euro-standard renovation (so called euroremont), availability of such additional options as air-conditioning, cable or Sat TV, Internet etc.;
5 stars (*****) - luxury or VIP class, high-level renovation, furniture and electronics, author's design, availability of such options as hydromassage (Jacuzzi), sauna, fire-place etc.

Coming soon.

Feel free to email us to info@rentinkiev.com with your questions!