Not all global universities offer dorms or other types of student housing like many U.S. schools do. For this and other reasons, students pursuing long-term international studies or international degree programs may have to fend for themselves when it comes to finding a place to live.

Eve Binder, a U.S. student, had to find her own housing in the U.K. prior to starting a master’s degree program at the University of Oxford. University housing wasn’t an option because she wanted to bring her two cats — Disaster and Calamity — abroad with her.

Binder was able to find a place that met her needs — but not before almost wiring money to a fraudulent landlord.

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Here are five tips to help prospective international students avoid common pitfalls of finding student housing abroad.

1. Check out Facebook groups: Current and former American international students say that Facebook was a key resource in their housing search.

“That’s where I found most of my information really, was Facebook,” says Grace Taylor, an American student who spent around two years of her undergraduate career studying in Ecuador. She looked up groups for expats in the area where she was looking for housing and read about recommended apartments and landlords.

Rosie Thomas, a U.S. native and master’s student at Bielefeld University in Germany, recommends joining university student groups on the social media platform. Group members can ask for housing advice, such as, “What’s the best website to use to find a flat? Or, does anyone know about this university accommodation? Like, is it any good?” Thomas says.

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2. Make in-country connections: Lots of university websites have information for international students about finding local housing. For instance, Bielefeld University suggests several online housing platforms students can use in their search. Students can also reach out to their university’s international office with additional housing questions.

Another way to tap local knowledge is to seek out any friends — or friends of friends — who are already living overseas. This is a strategy Binder used — and it saved her from a financial scam.

Binder sought help from a U.K.-based acquaintance to scope out an interesting apartment she had found online. After talking with friends, the connection realized the listing was a scam well-known to local students.

“If you have a friend of a friend who’s staying in the area, offer to pay them $20 or something to go look at the place for you,” Binder says, “because $20 pales in comparison to like 3,000 pounds that you could potentially lose on a fraudulent apartment.”

3. Determine what’s most important to you: Thomas, who is studying at Bielefeld University, says there are usually three main criteria when it comes to housing: “There’s location, there’s people and there’s price. And the majority of the time you have to let one of those go,” she says. Of these, the two that are most important for her are the location and the people, both of which have “a huge impact on your daily life.”

For Binder, a major consideration was pet-friendliness. Distance from campus is also an important detail for any international student looking for local housing.

If public transportation is convenient and affordable, living farther away from campus might not be a problem, students say. Biking to class may be another option.

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4. Consider short-term housing: The strategy Thomas used to find housing in Germany was to first book short-term accommodations. After arriving, she scouted longer-term housing options during the few weeks she was in her temporary rental.

“I knew from experience how important it is to meet people in real life, get a feel for the city before I commit to anything long term,” she says. Thomas used the website WG-Gesucht.de to find her short-term digs.

5. Get the details in writing: Taylor, who studied in Ecuador, says her biggest piece of advice to students is to get a contract “that’s in writing , that both the tenant and the landlord sign before the person sets foot on the property.”

Taylor found an apartment she liked close to the University of Cuenca, where she had enrolled. She paid a deposit and the first month’s rent and planned to move in when renovations to the apartment were complete.

However, the landlord didn’t complete the repairs in time. Taylor not only needed a different apartment, but she also lost her money. She says the landlord refused to admit that she had paid.

One of the reasons Taylor had no recourse was that she hadn’t signed a housing contract. “I learned the hard way,” she says, “but I learned.”

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5 Tips for Finding Off-Campus Housing Overseas originally appeared on usnews.com